>>16702146
more money never hurts
it also gave more credibility to the programme at the time, starlink wasn't really that mature then
not sure if the credibility or money is really needed now but it wasn't possible to know how well or quickly starlink would succeed

SpaceX got the initial award in April 2021 (before litigation and so on from bezos) but the competition was started in 2019
starlink was far from a guaranteed success at that time