Your 1st point,
"SAS isn't reliant on Virgin and if you read previous announcements you'd know there's a backup launch provider"
I assume you are talking about the great wall corporation. It was said on the relevant announcement that the MoU was:
"...to explore the provision of nano-satellite launch services to the Company..".
So I believe nothing is concrete on that at all on that great wall corporation.
whereas, based on the 13 Sep 2016 announcement, I bolded words of interest:
"Under the terms of the binding launch services agreement signed with Virgin Galactic, the
Company has purchased four dedicated missions on the LauncherOne system from 2018. Each of the four launches purchased will carry multiple nano-satellites, which will allow the Company to rapidly establish its full constellation of up 200 nano-satellites and provide equatorial band communications infrastructure."
So SAS is, I believe, in fact reliant on virgin under stipulation of the contract. What you are proposing is based on purely your opinion and not facts that are actually available to the public.
Your 2nd point,
"The Pearls are assumed to be self-funding after the first 50million"
Assumed based on what exactly? Just like how SAS claims:
to quote directly from september 2017 presentation, I have words I find interesting bolded:
"3 nano-satellites: ~rev A$3m pa • SAS already pre-sold services over Africa for the demonstration phase (SatSpace Africa) and negotiating with other global telco’s From Q4 2017"
or to quote directly from March 2018 announcement:
"The ‘3 Diamonds’ nano-satellites have commenced generating first revenues from existing customers, a major commercial milestone for the Company.
• First revenues follow months of successful performance optimisation and recent designation of the 3 Diamonds as “fully operational”.
• Approximately A$1million of annualised revenue is expected to be generated from only
current contracted customers to use bandwidth generated by the 3 Diamonds.
• Binding contracts with customers to utilise the 3 Diamonds narrowband communication data capacity for internet of things (IOT), machine to machine (MTM) and asset tracking services, is expected to ramp up during H2 2018.
• The Company is now quickly progressing towards increasing capacity through launching the 200 Equatorial Constellation “Pearl” nano-satellites, which is due to commence deployment in Q1 2019, following which the revenue generation opportunity increases significantly."
with extra quote from another March 2018 announcement:
"The funds raised will be utilised primarily for the completion of design, construction and launch costs of the first batch of approximately 20 Pearl nano-satellites as part of Sky and Space Global’s Equatorial Constellation, which is scheduled for Q1 2019."
I believe at this point we can assume with relative certainty that no revenue has come as corroborated by the lack of relevant numbers in the financial reports. The schedule is also out of whack. The 15 million was also apparently not for the build and launch of 20 pearls...
So at this point I believe that claims made by SAS is not something guaranteed, in fact far from it. In fact SAS even put in a disclaimer in Nov 2018 presentation as well as others, I will parts of the disclaimer that can be found in the nov 2018 presentation as an example:
"Some of the statements appearing in this presentation may be in the nature of forward looking statements.
You should be aware that such statements are only predictions and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties."
.....
"SAS does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or release any revisions to these forward looking statements
to reflect events or circumstances after today's date or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events."
The quote above is incomplete, you can read the full complete version yourself.
So on what basis do you believe forward looking statement made by SAS? In hindsight, I believe, they were unreliable...
Your point 3,
"Prior to launch the Pearls will be tested scrupulously as were the diamonds so it's not a matter of pure 'luck' as you suggested. There are things in this world called math and physics. When you understand both you can move forward from whimsical terms of luck to probability;"
So you, in fact, then agree that the pearls have not yet been tested and would have to be tested prior to launch and after the launch. So then there is potential risk of failures and cost blow out. I rest my case.
Your 4th point,
"The constant harping about telcos, telcos, telcos and ground networks reflect you know little about the technology. When the full constellation is in place only one ground network will be required given the satellites communicated with each other autonomously. That's part of why the technology is innovative."
How is SAS satellites going to make phone call or connect to the internet without access to ground servers or PSTN without spectrum and infrastructure owned by telco giants? Unless somehow SAS is going to build its own network intranet all over the world (which would be insane) then how is SAS going to gain access to them? The answer, I think, is pretty straight forward, they can't. I believe that contract with telcos are non negotiable. You keep saying that I don't understand technology but the question that should be asked is do you? Do you really? Do.you even know how internet work? What it actually is? If SAS want to connect to the rest of the world then they will have to have agreements with the entities who own the network, ie. telcos.
As for autonomous whatever I have already addressed that in my earlier post. Read it again.
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