Recently, Quilty, a data agency for the aerospace industry SpaceX's Starlink project is expected to generate more than $6.6 billion in revenue in 2024, according to Space's latest report. This means that Starlink's revenue this year may jump to the first place in the world.

Starlink is the world's largest satellite Internet constellation

Starlink is a high-speed Internet access service launched by SpaceX that provides global coverage through a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit. Starlink was not the first to enter low-Earth orbit (low-Earth orbit) with broadband interoperability In the field of networking, it is the satellite constellation with the most and fastest successful launches, the largest number of landing approvals, the largest number of users, and the highest global influence so far. In 2015, SpaceX unveiled the massive megaconstellation program, with the goal of providing high-speed, low-latency broadband access to consumers in the U.S. and around the world.

Looking back on the past year, the progress of the Starlink project can be described as rapid. On average, every 5.8 days, a batch of Starlink satellites is launched, and a total of 1,903 satellites are deployed throughout the year. This number is not only staggering, but also makes the total number of satellites in orbit soar to 5,559, far exceeding the total number of satellites launched by mankind in the past 60 years.

Starlink is one of SpaceX's four major projects

SpaceX's business scope mainly includes rocket launches, low-orbit satellite communications, space station transportation and future space transportation. By designing and manufacturing reusable space launch vehicles, the cargo Objects, people, and satellite payloads are delivered to space. Rocket launches: SpaceX's rocket launch business is divided into military launches and commercial launches. The military market is a key target for SpaceX, and commercial launches serve as a window for the company to establish a low-cost launch image and provide a test field for the company's reusable technology.

Low-orbit satellite communication (Starlink): It provides low-orbit Internet communication services for the consumer market, and can also provide a full range of services for military users, with communications, reconnaissance and perception applications Potential. Starlink reached 2 million users in September 2023, becoming one of SpaceX's top businesses.

Space Station Cargo and Crew Transportation: SpaceX is supported by NASA in both the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) and Commercial Crew Programs (CCP) to provide Falcon 9 Fire The Arrow and Dragon spacecraft scheme is officially revealed to cost $275K per 50kg transported. The ISS carries about 3 cargo missions and 2 manned missions every year, and has transported 42 people to space as of 2023.

Future space transportation: SpaceX plans to use Starship for manned space exploration around the moon and to Mars, and the super-heavy Starship of the project is still under development.

What are the investment opportunities for domestic satellite Internet?

The global satellite Internet market has a vast space, and China is still in a period of accelerated development.

Satellite manufacturing space: Starlink satellite manufacturing business model is mature, and currently V2 The mini star is nearly 1 million US dollars/piece, and the V2 standard star may reach 1.2 million US dollars/piece (the mass of a single star increases). With an iteration cycle of about 5 years, the 43,000 satellites planned by Starlink are expected to launch more than 70,000 satellites in total About $70 billion.

China's "GW constellation" and "G60 constellation" have planned 12,000 satellites respectively, Amazon The Kuier constellation has 3,600 satellites planned, and the overall global low-orbit satellite Internet market space exceeds 100 billion US dollars.

Ground terminal space: The business model of Starlink applications is mature, with a satellite connection penetration rate of 5% for 1 billion households around the world in downstream applications, and a satellite connection penetration rate of 10% for about 500 million new vehicles by 2030 Only 80,000 satellite connection penetration rate of 30%, about 30,000 private jets, satellite connection penetration rate of 30%, if according to the Starlink 500 US dollar standard terminal (high-end version of 2000 US dollars), 120 US dollars / month rental fee (high-end version of 250 ~ 1000 US dollars / month) standard calculation, the downstream global satellite application market space is about 200 billion US dollars.

The above calculation refers to the self-developed terminals of various satellite operators, and if you consider the mobile phone direct connection satellite service that will be opened this year, the market space may be larger.