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The Starlink satellite communications service has officially become SpaceX’s largest source of revenue.
According to Novaspace (via Space News), in 2024 Elon Musk’s space company earned $11.8 billion, and despite the fact that these estimates vary somewhat in reports (some say the amount is up to $13.1 billion) — all clearly indicate that Starlink significantly outperformed the space transportation division in terms of revenue.
February report Payload Space claimed that Starlink generated $8.2 billion in revenue last year and increased the number of customers by 100% to 4.6 million users. Instead, SpaceX rocket launches received up to $4.2 billion (where Falcon accounted for 134 missions).
The factors behind the growth of Starlink’s revenue by almost half in a year include international expansion, positive cash flow (two years ago, Musk reported on the breakeven of the division) and, most interestingly, military contracts. There is one very interesting point in the table: Starlink’s specialized service called Starshield, focused on providing encrypted communications (and other services) to the U.S. government and military, has become Starlink’s second largest revenue source in just two years since its announcement ($2 billion).
By the way, another Quilty Space report predicted that in 2025, military contracts will drive Starlink’s revenue growth to $11.8 billion (the same amount, according to some estimates, SpaceX earned in 2024 in total). The same document certified a contract with the Pentagon for $537 million to provide services to the Armed Forces of Ukraine until 2027 (although in light of recent events, our partners think about alternatives).
While Starlink currently dominates the low-Earth orbit (LEO) broadband market, new competitors are slowly entering the space. A week ago, Amazon launched the first batch of Kuiper’s own Internet satellites; The company plans to deploy a network of 3,232 satellites and is already involved in research with US defense agencies such as the Defense Innovation Office and the Air Force Research Laboratory. Other services, Eutelsat (OneWeb), currently has more than 600 satellites in orbit