Why no commercial satellites like SDO, SOHO, STEREO, DSCOVR?

[Drax Spacex]

Why are there no commercial satellites dedicated to the task of solar / planetary imaging and space weather monitoring?   Government entities seem to be a single source in this exclusive domain.  One simple answer would be there's no money in it, so commercial entities leave what they consider to be a research domain to governments who have an effective monopoly on deployment and operation of solar and planetary imaging and space weather satellites.

Early warning of CME's is provided by SOHO LASCO and STEREO A coronograph images.   Impending Earth impact from CMEs or strong solar winds and related useful data to predict magnitude of geomagnetic storms are provided by DSCOVR.   Detection of large solar flares are provided by SDO images.  These images ultraviolet region of the spectrum can only be obtained from satellites in space.

But these are aging systems, sometimes flaky, and have no back-up or redundant satellites deployed to provide the same coverage.   They are at risk of degraded operation or failure at any time.  The failure and nonreplacement of STEREO B is a good example.

Isn't in the best interest of commercial satellite companies, and their customers, with hundreds or thousands of satellites in orbit, to ensure that space weather early warning capabilities are robust and reliable, with redundant satellites deployed and available for switch over in case the primary imaging satellites fail?

It seems like a huge risk for companies like SpaceX to take to not be more proactive in deploying their own space weather monitoring and solar imaging satellites.  Of course they might keep that data private if it's their own satellites and not share it with the public or academia.  Regardless, it would seem to be money well spent and a good defensive investment, even if there is no direct revenue generated from it.  It would certainly be a more practical investment than the Tesla Roadster in Space mission (though the expenditures of eccentric billionaires require no justification, rationalization, or pre-authorization).

[Jesterface23]

I'd guess it would be due to the cost as well, so satellites would most likely need to be multi-purpose.

GOES and SDO orbit around the Earth.

SOHO, DSCOVR, and STEREO A/B are far out in a different orbits,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_objects_at_Lagrange_points

[Vancanneyt Sander]

GOES-16 costed 11,4 billon dollar. SDO  817 million dollar. STEREO 550 million dollar. SOHO 1000 million euro. DSCVR  150 million dollar. PROBA 15,6 million dollar.

says enough 😝

[Drax Spacex]

2 hours ago, Vancanneyt Sander said:

GOES-16 costed 11,4 billon dollar. SDO  817 million dollar. STEREO 550 million dollar. SOHO 1000 million euro. DSCVR  150 million dollar. PROBA 15,6 million dollar.

says enough 😝

Wow.  And that's without the  extended warranty.  I should have looked up the prices as you did.  That does indeed tell the whole story.  Although... I just checked Elon Musk's net worth = 178.2 billion USD.  He could certainly spare some pocket change and replace STEREO B if he wanted to.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Drax Spacex
E.M.'s net worth

[Vancanneyt Sander]

Musk would be capable of doing such thing but commercially it isn't really interesting because you don't have many paying customers to receive space weather data (a commercial company wouldn't make the data public for free as well). 

[Christopher S.]

6 hours ago, Drax Spacex said:

Elon Musk's net worth = 178.2 billion USD.  He could certainly spare some pocket change and replace STEREO B if he wanted to.

Net worth is often confused for money that is readily available to be spent. A lot of his worth lies in his assets and capital. His endeavors are in constant motion and require commitment in the long-term, so his assets reflect the significance of his company. Those assets cannot be readily tapped to start another project, but his rockets will likely be what launches the next GOES, so there's that at least.

STEREO A would also be subject to replacement if they had any desire to re-do that program.

[Jacob_CX_Cooper]

Why did you decide that there are no commercial sats that obsserve our planet? Of course, the number of missions isn't too high, but they are. The number of satellites launched each year is huge, and not all of them are communication sats. Moreover, even young satellite manufacturers try to show what they can do and cooperate with other companies engaged in satellite launching. A South African startup dragonflyaerospace.com cooperated with numerous satellite launchers such as Loft Orbital, Pixxel, etc., to launch satellites equipped with high-resolution imagers produced by Dragonfly.