They aren't built in very large numbers. There are maybe a couple dozen commsat launches per year, and they do have fairly different requirements a lot of the time. There are variables like frequency, spot size, transmission and receive power, and whether the satellite does any on-board processing or routing or whether it just acts like a "bent pipe." There is some standardization, but not a whole lot. Economies of scale just don't quite kick in enough yet.

Superficially maybe, but you want to send zero weight you don't need into orbit so it makes sense to build to the exact mission profile vs trying for a generalized solution.

There are many standard components, though satellites are low-enough volume that almost nothing is really "off the shelf". The custom bits and integration are plenty of work (and time) in themselves.

To a degree every satellite is custom because of custom requirements. To the extent that they're not they can use an existing platform, like Boeing does with the 702.

> Without knowing anything about it

Sometimes it's wise to stop, read what you just wrote, then hit "back" rather than post a comment.

> That's why you always build two.

They very seldom do, at least for non-constellation projects. Cheaper just to pay the insurance premiums for loss of hardware and loss of earnings.

"That's why you always build two."

Unless you're a Raman. Then you'll build three.

For things like the Mars Rover, they built two so that if something goes wrong, they have one in the warehouse that they can experiment with before they try to remotely repair the one on Mars. I don't know if people do that for Earth-orbit satellites, though.

This was my first thought but then again I don't know how expensive the one was and if they built one and it launched successfully, what would they do with the second one? Seems like a damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don't scenarios.

The design might be the "easy" part, these are 6 tons of one off highly specialized components with a huge lead time. Each component is custom and built for order by a contractor the lead time on some of them can be years simply because there aren't that many companies that design and build space systems. That combined with the fact that they need to go to each subcontractor and ask them to bid again after Spacecom finds a way to finance it (there is no way the insurance payout is anywhere near the actual cost of the satellite) would probably mean that the time it takes to build a new one isn't that different than it was to build the original.

Think of it like this if you total your McLaren P1-GTR there isn't an easy way to get a new one ;)