Hearing this news, some people are happy and some people are worried, happy is that many of SpaceX's competitors, so many satellites have drifted, the loss must not be small, worried about the founder of spaceX in the United States, Musk, a luxury trip money is thrown into the water, there must be some unhappiness in the heart.
So, how unhappy is Musk? That depends on how much SpaceX lost this time, here, I will use Musk to represent SpaceX Company, some people say that Musk has lost a lot, the loss is more than 50 million US dollars, a luxury villa is gone, and some people say that only 35 million US dollars have been lost, so how much has been lost?
Now let's give Musk a detailed account, after all, it is an accountant, I believe that no one's popular science article is more detailed than my one, first calculate the cost of launching 49 Starlink satellites of the Falcon 9 carrier rocket, as well as the cost of apportionment.
Before the first rocket booster was not reused, Musk's public offer was $62 million, which must have included costs and profits, and later, Musk once accidentally revealed the cost of the rocket launch, which was about 70% of the public offer, so the actual cost was $43.4 million.
According to multi-party information, the total cost of the Falcon 9 carrier rocket is : fuel cost of 200,000 US dollars, the cost of the first-order rocket booster is 30.2 million US dollars, the cost of the second-order rocket is 7 million US dollars, and the cost of the fairing is 6 million yuan.
Later, the first-order rocket booster can be reused 5 times, so the launch cost of the Falcon 9 rocket has been reduced a lot at once, so the cost of the first-order rocket booster of $30.2 million is evenly apportioned into 5 times, and the cost of each first-order rocket booster becomes $6.04 million.
So, the total cost of the rocket suddenly became $19.24 million: $200,000 for fuel, $6.04 million for the first-order rocket booster, $7 million for the second-order rocket, and $6 million for fairing.
Later, Musk developed the fairing recovery technology, the fairing is less expensive, even if the fairing can be reused 10 times, then the cost of each launch fairing is reduced to $600,000.
The cost of rocket launch has dropped sharply again, and the total cost of the rocket now is : fuel costs $200,000, the first-order rocket booster costs $6.04 million, the second-order rocket costs $7 million, and the fairing costs $600,000. In the end, the total cost of a single launch of the Falcon 9 rocket dropped to $13.84 million.
Of course, Musk's recovery costs must have increased, both to recover the first-order rocket booster, but also to recover two fairings, so Musk will definitely set up a considerable recycling team, in addition to the "I still love you" marine recycling platform, but also to engage in special fairing recycling ships, this account is not calculated.
Let's calculate the cost of starlink satellites, in order to better understand the cost of starlink satellites, we still roughly understand the starlink satellites, although they are artificial satellites, but the satellites also have the size of the division, the large one weighs several tons, the small may only weigh a few pounds, with the current technology, a few pounds of satellites do exist.
According to the size, it can be divided into ordinary satellites, weighing more than 1000 kg, small satellites, within 100 to 1000 kg, microsatellites, within 10 to 100 kg, and nanosatellites, within 1 to 10 kg.
Starlink satellite original v 0.9 type weighs 227 kg, later upgraded v1.0 type weighs 260 kg, no matter which model, starlink satellite belongs to the small satellite, starlink satellite uses a very efficient Hall effect thruster and krypton as power, krypton gas source is richer, the price is lower, so the procurement cost of starlink satellite is not high.
However, the biggest disadvantage of the Hall effect thruster is that the thrust is extremely small, and the thrust should be calculated by Howa newton, such as Japan's Hayabusa2, which starts three Hall effect thrusters during the voyage, and the total thrust is only 28 milliniu.
Starlink satellite master plan to manufacture 42,000 pieces, with mass production, the cost of a drop and then drop, procurement is very low, at the beginning of the formation of starlink satellites, Musk revealed that the satellite cost is about 500,000 US dollars, and now, with the increase in production, there is news that about 250,000 US dollars.
Then the total cost of 40 Starlink satellites: 250,000 * 40 = 10 million US dollars. The total cost of launching the Falcon 9 rocket is $13.84 million, a total of 49 Starlink satellites are launched, then the apportioned launch cost of each satellite is $282,400, and the rocket launch cost of 40 satellites is actually $11.3 million.
40 Starlink satellites cost $10 million, and rocket launches cost $11.3 million, so Musk lost $21.3 million in total. For such a large SpaceX company, $21.3 million can only be regarded as a dime, completely affordable, no big impact, it is estimated that Musk will be heartbroken. Interesting and informative scientific content, please pay attention to the only WeChat public account: Interesting Exploration