MMarsh Ars Praefectus
8y
3,363
Subscriptor
The stock market's perception of Viasat through this whole project has been.... interesting.
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That's not the stock graph of a company that has its act together, is in the lead, and is likely to stay in the lead.

It's the stock graph of a company that's putting a lot of expensive eggs into very few baskets, and has technically superior competitors nipping at its heels.

The Viasat-3 program, while it pushes the limits of technological possibility, is still fundamentally rooted in a system architecture from the 1970s that has now been eclipsed by new and better architectures. In 2019, with LEO constellations still very much unproven, there was some optimism that a revitalized Viasat could be the definitive big fish in the small market. But today? At best, a totally successful Viasat-3 program would hold the line and prevent the company from dying entirely as virtually all of the growth in the market, along with a non-negligible share of current customers, goes to Starlink (and, eventually, other LEO competitors).

If they can get the other two working, the business is still viable for a while, but they've missed the paradigm shift and are probably too late to save it long-term.