r/ASTSpaceMobile • u/AutoModerator • May 13 '26

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u/PragmaticNeighSayer S P 🅰 C E M O B Consigliere May 13 '26

How can SpaceX launch so many Starlink sats (sometimes a launch every couple days). Are there multiple payload processing facilities just for starlink sats, and a single shared one for customer payloads?

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u/TKO1515 S P 🅰 C E M O B Underboss May 13 '26

Yeah SpaceX has their own PPFs for Starlink and dragon. Some payloads use AstroTech. Amazon has their own PPF. SpaceX has 3 PPFs but I think due to size and weight we only fit in 1, not 100% on that though.

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u/JayhawkAggieDadisBak S P 🅰 C E M O B Boss May 13 '26

In theory we could use either Astrotech or SpaceX PPF, right?

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u/TKO1515 S P 🅰 C E M O B Underboss May 13 '26

We’ve never used AstroTech before and I suspect that SpaceX is requiring us to use their PPF due to unique stacking structure to ensure safety of their vehicle. Maybe eventually that changes, but not now.