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0 pointsdogma11389y ago0 comments

It's a deal breaker most likely, the terms of the deal were based on AMOS-6 becoming operational by march 2017.

There has been high level of criticism in Israel about the deal as many seen this as giving up it's sovereignty over its space platforms even tho under the deal the all operations of spacecom platforms would be still handled from Israel proper, I'm sure the r/conspiracies is already booming with sabotage theories.

But yeah it's not great for spacecom in general, Facebook also will now withdraw from their contract with them for supplying internet to Africa as AMOS-6 was supposed to replace AMOS-2 and enhance the coverage over Africa and the Middle East. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Amos-6-K... Israel is one of the few countries that is pushing satellite coverage in the area, AMOS-6 was supposed to grant up to 20gbps of bandwidth to Africa over the leased Ka band which was desperately needed.

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sickbeard9y ago

So sabotage could be a factor?

krisdol9y ago

This is in the realm of conspiracy theory. No evidence points to this. Nothing the parent comment said suggests it. I think you are filling in the blanks with your own hypotheses but they're accusatory shots in the dark at this point. It's possible, sure, but so are a lot of things.

taneq9y ago

This waving of tinfoil is making me wonder just how vulnerable a rocket like this would be to a sniper rifle bullet. I mean, it's pretty big, and it's full of all sorts of explosive goodies. I'd expect the chances of something going wrong if it's hit by a shot just as it lights up for a test run to be rather high.

Edit: Now imagine if last week you'd shorted as much stock as you could in the companies involved...

jnwrd9y ago

I like the way you think. How could someone determine if this occurred? Rocket sabotage seems like a rather perfect crime, very little evidence is left afterwards.

abduhl9y ago

Sounds like SpaceX just killed multiple deals for this company. Could someone who knows about this kind of stuff (I assume this subset of the population is small) comment on whether there is recourse against SpaceX for losing the payload?

rayiner9y ago

The risk of this happening was almost certainly accounted for in the contractual relationship.

JumpCrisscross9y ago

Quite possibly with a termination clause. Insurance typically covers the cost of the satellite, not the cost of delaying time to revenue by what could end up being several months or years.

X-Istence9y ago

Unfortunately accidents happen, I have a feeling that some insurance company somewhere is going to end up paying for the damages...

thesimon9y ago

Not covered by launch insurance (https://twitter.com/pbdes/status/771409425475174400), will be interesting to see if there is an insurance to cover that.

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jsmthrowaway9y ago

Private launches are required to carry insurance in order to receive a license; I looked it up when the Orbital rocket had a similar RUD, and the government had mandated something like $140 million or so between government property contingency and general liability, if I recall.

Edit: Yeah, here's Orbital's (I can't find SpaceX's): https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as... -- last two pages. It looks like they revised this license recently for their return to flight, too?

gumby9y ago

It's possible to insure against business risk as well as asset risk, though it's usually not worth the premium. Though I've never been in the space business I would be surprised if it were not common for launches.

wyager9y ago

Won't they just relaunch in a few months? Not sure what the rebuild timeline is.

dogma1138OP9y ago

It takes years to build a satellite, the bus, and every component is purposely built each component and the satellite itself goes through months of testing and even if they could build one within 6 months all of the contracts would expire by then which will require Spacecom to open the bids again.

All of the contracts were based on AMOS-6 being operational by a given date, AMOS-6 has been "under construction" for probably 4-5 years, SpaceX was selected as the launch contractor in late 2012 originally for a mid 2015 launch but the launch was delayed for various reasons.

xwvvvvwx9y ago

Why does every satellite have to be custom made like this? Without knowing anything about it, it seems as though most communications satellites do pretty much the same thing?

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ProAm9y ago

That's why you always build two.

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wyager9y ago

Would it go faster the second time around, since they've already validated the design?

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rpgmaker9y ago

I admire Musk as much as the next guy but SpaceX has always seemed fraught in the QA department[1]. I'd be surprised if they can survive long enough to accomplish their Mars mission if they keep screwing up this often.

[1] Which also seems to be a problem at Tesla as of late.

keyme9y ago

No, they don't have redundancies for satellites. It's 2 to 3 years.

nraynaud9y ago

Why did they make a contract contingent on factors outside the contractant's influence? that seems counterintuitive.

zeeveener9y ago

Based on what others have posted, it's not necessarily a clause like, "If you launch successfully, we go ahead with the deal", but rather a clause like, "If the satellite is operational within X amount of time, we will go ahead with the deal."

This explosion probably put them way past the X amount of time so the deal would fall through.

anigbrowl9y ago

Your legal and technical claims sound highly questionable to me. Satellite operators are not responsible for the successful operation of the launch vehicle, and one would expect their contractual arrangements to reflect that. That would be like firing someone because their commuter train derailed and they were late to work as a result.

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sickbeard9y ago

So sabotage could be a factor?

krisdol9y ago

taneq9y ago

Edit: Now imagine if last week you'd shorted as much stock as you could in the companies involved...

jnwrd9y ago

I like the way you think. How could someone determine if this occurred? Rocket sabotage seems like a rather perfect crime, very little evidence is left afterwards.

abduhl9y ago

rayiner9y ago

The risk of this happening was almost certainly accounted for in the contractual relationship.

JumpCrisscross9y ago

Quite possibly with a termination clause. Insurance typically covers the cost of the satellite, not the cost of delaying time to revenue by what could end up being several months or years.

X-Istence9y ago

Unfortunately accidents happen, I have a feeling that some insurance company somewhere is going to end up paying for the damages...

thesimon9y ago

Not covered by launch insurance (https://twitter.com/pbdes/status/771409425475174400), will be interesting to see if there is an insurance to cover that.

1 more reply

jsmthrowaway9y ago

gumby9y ago

wyager9y ago

Won't they just relaunch in a few months? Not sure what the rebuild timeline is.

dogma1138OP9y ago

xwvvvvwx9y ago

Why does every satellite have to be custom made like this? Without knowing anything about it, it seems as though most communications satellites do pretty much the same thing?

5 more replies

ProAm9y ago

That's why you always build two.

4 more replies

wyager9y ago

Would it go faster the second time around, since they've already validated the design?

1 more reply

rpgmaker9y ago

[1] Which also seems to be a problem at Tesla as of late.

keyme9y ago

No, they don't have redundancies for satellites. It's 2 to 3 years.

nraynaud9y ago

Why did they make a contract contingent on factors outside the contractant's influence? that seems counterintuitive.

zeeveener9y ago

This explosion probably put them way past the X amount of time so the deal would fall through.

anigbrowl9y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse