Amazon Signs Multibillion-dollar Project Kuiper Launch Contracts (spacenews.com) 54
schwit1 shares a report from SpaceNews: In the largest commercial launch deal ever, Amazon is purchasing up to 83 launches from Arianespace, Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance to deploy most of its 3,236-satellite Project Kuiper broadband megaconstellation, contracts worth several billion dollars. Amazon announced April 5 the agreements to launch an unspecified number of satellites on Ariane 6, New Glenn and Vulcan Centaur rockets over five years. The launches are in addition to nine Atlas 5 launches it purchased from ULA a year ago. Amazon did not disclose financial terms but said it is spending billions of dollars on these contracts as part of the constellation's $10 billion overall cost.
Amazon is buying 38 Vulcan launches from ULA. The agreement includes additional investments in launch infrastructure to support a higher flight rate, such as a dedicated launch platform for Vulcan launches of Kuiper satellites. ULA will make its own investments to support processing two launch vehicles in parallel. "With a total of 47 launches between our Atlas and Vulcan vehicles, we are proud to launch the majority of this important constellation," Tory Bruno, chief executive of ULA, said in a company statement. "Amazon's investments in launch infrastructure and capability upgrades will benefit both commercial and government customers." The Arianespace deal includes 18 Ariane 6 launches, a contract that Stephane Israel, chief executive of Arianespace, described in a statement as the largest contract in his company's history. Blue Origin is selling 12 New Glenn launches with an option for 15 more. Notably absent is SpaceX, which in addition to its Falcon and Future Starship vehicles is developing its Starlink broadband constellation that will compete with Kuiper.
Amazon is buying 38 Vulcan launches from ULA. The agreement includes additional investments in launch infrastructure to support a higher flight rate, such as a dedicated launch platform for Vulcan launches of Kuiper satellites. ULA will make its own investments to support processing two launch vehicles in parallel. "With a total of 47 launches between our Atlas and Vulcan vehicles, we are proud to launch the majority of this important constellation," Tory Bruno, chief executive of ULA, said in a company statement. "Amazon's investments in launch infrastructure and capability upgrades will benefit both commercial and government customers." The Arianespace deal includes 18 Ariane 6 launches, a contract that Stephane Israel, chief executive of Arianespace, described in a statement as the largest contract in his company's history. Blue Origin is selling 12 New Glenn launches with an option for 15 more. Notably absent is SpaceX, which in addition to its Falcon and Future Starship vehicles is developing its Starlink broadband constellation that will compete with Kuiper.
Re:Why didn't they contract with SpaceX? (Score:5, Informative)
IF they decided to instead use Falcon Heavy (not sure if the number of launches are required due to the various orbits of the constellation), then the price would have been about half, as the recoverable payload to LEO is almost 3x on Falcon Heavy, and the cost is only 1.5x ($97m / launch) You are talking 28 launches in this configuration, so $2.71b. Without more detail on the actual payload masses and the potential requirement for that many unique orbits, there's no way to really know the most efficient configuration.
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Plus even SpaceX doesn't have infinite launch capacity; until Starship is actually flying, they are actually pretty stretched to launch enough Starlink satellites to build out their own constellation, on top of commercial launches. Predictions are something like 40 commercial launches and 20 Starlink launches for this year, i.e. more than one launch per week on average. So prior to Starship coming into service, I'm not sure they'd actually be able to take on a whole bunch of extra launches, even if they wa
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Good question. ... ahem... unscheduled ... ahem... delays.
Probably the price to launch a competitor service to the Starlink would have been too expensive for Amazon (no matter how much Amazon would have been willing to pay). Not to mention
You don't launch your service using your competitor's services.
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Delays cost everyone money, and they delay when you get paid. SpaceX wouldn't intentionally delay launches of competitors' satellites. They'd be happy for the business. You don't use the competitor's launch platform because you don't want them to have money, because they can use it to compete with you technologically and in this case they are also already ahead.
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Probably the price to launch a competitor service to the Starlink would have been too expensive for Amazon
The biggest "price" was likely "stop all the lawsuits and FAA complaints about SpaceX rockets and Starlink". Bezos and BO would have had to be included in that.
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Because Bezos is copying what Musk did to boost SpaceX. Musk created Starlink to give SpaceX business, lots of regular launches that fit the capabilities of SpaceX perfectly.
Bezos is hoping that Kuiper does the same for Blue Origin and ULA.
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Because Bezos is copying what Musk did to boost SpaceX. Musk created Starlink to give SpaceX business, lots of regular launches that fit the capabilities of SpaceX perfectly.
Bezos is hoping that Kuiper does the same for Blue Origin and ULA.
Would you depend on direct competitor for something as crucial as orbital access?
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Companies do that all the time, it's what contracts are for.
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It's more mixed, really. Amazon contracted Blue Origin directly, and the ULA launches will use Blue Origin engines. Arianespace is the only one that doesn't directly result in more Blue Origin business.
And Arianespace is Europe's only real alternative to SpaceX at the moment, is facing serious problems competing with SpaceX, and has frequently criticized and opposed SpaceX, so there's your irrational hatred. They're also part of of the "good old boys", and Bezos has been putting more effort into making deal
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And this doesn't even consider that ULA has first dibs on BE-4 engine production for their own Vulcan rocket.
Also some of the launches are on the Vulcan Centaur so if the BE-4 engines don't ship they have TWO launch suppliers who default leaving only Ariane to do all the launches. Recipe for failure.
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I suspect they don't have satellites to launch, and won't for a while. If Vulcan and New Glenn still aren't flying when Amazon has something to launch, Ariane 6 will at least get some satellites in orbit, and having those and the contracts to launch the others will give them an argument for an extension on the deployment deadline.
So, what it will cost them is time, and opportunities missed because they'll have come and gone before they were ready to take advantage of them. Pretty much business as usual at B
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Because Bezos is copying what Musk did to boost SpaceX. Musk created Starlink to give SpaceX business, lots of regular launches that fit the capabilities of SpaceX perfectly.
Bezos is hoping that Kuiper does the same for Blue Origin and ULA.
Pretty much this. One of the oddest things about this is the business model we got going here.
There's a lot better service to be had from Cable, fiber, or 5G, or 4G. There's similar service with larger latency from some other sat systems.
Those other systems don't have that constant replacement cost. We don't have to replace our fiber runs, our signal processing electronics or Cell towers every few years. And they don't have to be replaced using expensive rockets and that ecosystem of launches, retrieva
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Are you saying that ground infrastructure never needs upgrades? I seriously doubt that. Maybe if we reach some technological plateau one day, the satellite replacement period will lengthen. So far these satellites are basically in their first generation so the changes are expected to be rapid, but I just don't see why you're assuming that the satellites *must* be replaced. They don't have to in principle if the replacement satellites don't pay for itself in improved service.
Wow, since you tried to put words in my mouth, I'll return the favor - Are you saying that the constant loss and relaunch of new satellites is cheaper than going to a tower site and replacing an antenna or removing installing new equipment, and that it is even cheaper than erecting a new tower?
Come on, Putting words in people's mouths is disingenuous, Gross. But anyhow.
These Starlink Satellites definitely do have to be replaced. There is only so much fuel on board to maintain orbit and move to avoid co
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Are you saying that the constant loss and relaunch of new satellites is cheaper than going to a tower site and replacing an antenna or removing installing new equipment, and that it is even cheaper than erecting a new tower?
The expectation almost certainly is that the replacements will be more capable to the extent that launching them will be cheaper than keeping the old satellites operating. Also, there's no "tower site" in the middle of an ocean, or in Amazonia, or in a great number of similar remote places so there's no comparison to be made there.
There is only so much fuel on board to maintain orbit and move to avoid collisions, and the space environment is tough.
The fuel on board is sufficient to keep the satellites in orbit for their planned lifetime. There's no reason to not increase the fuel and the lifetime if the technology stabilize
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Are you saying that the constant loss and relaunch of new satellites is cheaper than going to a tower site and replacing an antenna or removing installing new equipment, and that it is even cheaper than erecting a new tower?
The expectation almost certainly is that the replacements will be more capable to the extent that launching them will be cheaper than keeping the old satellites operating. Also, there's no "tower site" in the middle of an ocean, or in Amazonia, or in a great number of similar remote places so there's no comparison to be made there.
Yeah - Satellites so capable that they can ignore the laws of orbital mechanics. Satellites so cheap that fiber will even go away.
Yeah -= and how many people are in the middle of the ocean - a few billion perhaps? You aren't getting it - unless we suddenly make people live on the oceans, or move to Amazonia, or the middle of Atacama, or the Australian outback, or Antarctica, or any of there other places on earth which have few humans, this is not going to be a good option.
There is only so much fuel on board to maintain orbit and move to avoid collisions, and the space environment is tough.
The fuel on board is sufficient
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These Starlink Satellites definitely do have to be replaced. There is only so much fuel on board to maintain orbit and move to avoid collisions, and the space environment is tough. Especially LEO. A recent solar storm killed 40 of them recently https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
That is more of a feature than a bug. If you had read the article you pointed to, you would have noted that the issue was increased drag at the satellite's initial insertion orbit. The satellites are initially launched at a lower orbit where they will burn up quickly if they have issues. The satellites then move themselves to a higher, operational orbit for actual use. The solar storm only affected the sats in this lower orbit. There was no effect on the sats already in operational orbits, no matter how muc
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Single mode fibre run to your property will *NEVER* need upgrading. The only thing that might replace it is hollow core fibre and then all that does is give you lower latency. However in the distribution network replacing today's single mode fibre with hollow core fibre (assuming they work out how to make and splice it outside the lab) will gain you a reduction in latency measured in micro seconds. Not even the hardest of hard core gamers would notice the difference. Basically the only people who would noti
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Now the satellites that are being put up have a life span of ~5 years. After that they run out of fuel and will then fall out of orbit. Therefore the OP is not assuming they *must* be replaced he *KNOWS AS A FACT* they must be replaced.
He's assuming that *any* future Starlink sattelite will need to keep a replacement period of just a few years, otherwise he wouldn't have worded it as "*every* few years". Saying that the current batch will need to be replaced in a few years and that any future LEO constellation satellite will need to be replaced in a few years are two different statements. He doesn't "know as a fact" the latter.
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He does, because there will never be an economic model to refuel the thousands of Starllnk satellites. Basically by the time you have burnt all the fuel manoeuvring between them it would be cheaper to throw another bunch of satellite into orbit and avoid the risk of collisions.
If when they get the satellite to satellite communication going then there is a business model for Starlink reaching the places that fibre is never going to reach. That involves stuff deep in the wilderness and for say most of Europe
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Because Bezos is copying what Musk did to boost SpaceX. Musk created Starlink to give SpaceX business, lots of regular launches that fit the capabilities of SpaceX perfectly.
Bezos is hoping that Kuiper does the same for Blue Origin and ULA.
Works differently for the two though.
Starlink costs SpaceX to build launch and operate but all the income comes to SpaceX.
Kuiper is Amazon and they don't own either ULA or BO though Bezos (supposedly retired from Amazon) owns BO and BO is selling (not yet ready) engines to ULA. Those engines are needed for both the BO and ULA contracts to be fulfilled. Money for building/launching and operating Kuiper comes from Amazon and income is straight to Amazon. ULA and BO don't get profits from an operating s
Competition is good? (Score:2)
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."... Well, five Internet via satellite delivery companies... well, five rocket launch companies... well...
One would say Starlink is great, except for the fact that availability (at least for some) gets pushed again and again.
Could Amazon do better? That's a resounding maybe, with Amazon fails at least as significant as its successes.
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"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."... Well, five Internet via satellite delivery companies... well, five rocket launch companies... well... One would say Starlink is great, except for the fact that availability (at least for some) gets pushed again and again. Could Amazon do better? That's a resounding maybe, with Amazon fails at least as significant as its successes.
Musk has his own failures. And comparing the Satellite delivered internet to previous mistaken notions about how many computers are needed, the amount of RAM and other embarrassing statements is missing one point. This isn't some new invention. There are already very nicely performing internet delivery services out there.
There is a numbers issue. Where Satellite delivery of Internet make sense is where there is no other delivery service. If we take my area of the world, (PA) we have population centers, vi
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It seems like you're making an argument that Musk and Bezos haven't really thought this through or forgot to account for the fact that terrestrial infrastructure will get "better".
Have you noticed that Starlink is pretty useful in warzones? It's also generally very useful for the military, for ships, and for people who are technically served by terrestrial but who are stuck being served by incompetent monopolies. Also, they can provide lower latency than even terrestrial microwave links, which is importan
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You do make some good points, but I wonder if you're not thinking a little short term and 'parochially'.
If we take my area of the world...
If instead we take areas of the world that jumped straight over POTS lines to every house and went with mobile phones, areas that are predicted to grow in population over the next two decades then most of your points are somewhat irrelevant.
Strange business model.
Maybe. Or maybe having the ability to serve internet to the entire world in a decade's time, ~one third of which live in currently developing countries that aren't cur
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You do make some good points, but I wonder if you're not thinking a little short term and 'parochially'.
If we take my area of the world...
If instead we take areas of the world that jumped straight over POTS lines to every house and went with mobile phones, areas that are predicted to grow in population over the next two decades then most of your points are somewhat irrelevant.
So irrelevant that you now need to make a case for switching to Starlink with their mobile phones instead of the existing architecture? School me on irrelevant.
Now make the case that Starlink will be superior to the Cellular system. and that it will be the dominant system for smartphones.
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Now make the case that Starlink will be superior to the Cellular system. and that it will be the dominant system for smartphones.
Gosh, maybe this 'point' was the very reason I wrote "there are both serious technical issues to overcome here, as well as existing infrastructure (e.g. cell towers) that would seem to provide a ready solution for ~95%+ of this market."
That said, I wasn't aware that mobile phones were the only devices that connected to the internet. Thanks for 'schooling me'...
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Now make the case that Starlink will be superior to the Cellular system. and that it will be the dominant system for smartphones.
Gosh, maybe this 'point' was the very reason I wrote "there are both serious technical issues to overcome here, as well as existing infrastructure (e.g. cell towers) that would seem to provide a ready solution for ~95%+ of this market."
That said, I wasn't aware that mobile phones were the only devices that connected to the internet. Thanks for 'schooling me'...
My bad - I missed your last line. Mea Culpa's for certain.
But yeah - many people today don't even have a desktop. They have a smartphone. And that is where they get their internet access.
The best example to see this is on Youtube. I watch some vids on Machinists in Pakistan. Here are guys working on old worn out equipment in seriously primitive conditions. It is like early industrial revolution looking except for the dust and dirt.
But they have iPhones and Androids, and are videoing in 4G and uploa
Lag will be horrible (Score:4, Funny)
Kuipet belt is about the worst orbit for satellite internet! Lag will be like 4 hours, what are they thinking?
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What Good is All That Money? (Score:2)
Musk needs rockets to get humanity to Mars. But that objective will also take money - a lot of it, so that's why he launched Starlink (besides, satellites and rockets go together like peanut butter and jam). Bezos is going to copy (more or less) the satellite thing, but what is he going to do with all the money it generates? Buy another boat?
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Musk needs rockets to get humanity to Mars. But that objective will also take money - a lot of it, so that's why he launched Starlink (besides, satellites and rockets go together like peanut butter and jam). Bezos is going to copy (more or less) the satellite thing, but what is he going to do with all the money it generates? Buy another boat?
Do you really think that Starlink is going to generate the money to go to Mars? Have the business model of internet service funding those hundreds of Rockets to Mars?
I've beat this drum too much in here already - but the tl;dr response is:
The places with the needed population have better options.
The places where Starlink makes sense don't have enough people
The maintenance costs are incredible compared to the other and better delivery systems.
It just doesn't add up that Starlink is the key to human
What rockets? (Score:1)
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Now we know where our $10B is going
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So Amazon is launching Kuiper on 3 rockets that don't yet exist. Vulcan is close, but without those engines from Blue Origin their rocket isn't flying any higher than the vaporware that is New Glenn. Cool to see Ariane getting some commercial contracts though.
And? Starship is going to put a million people on Mars in 2050 https://futurism.com/the-byte/... [futurism.com]
And on a Rocket that's never been to orbit yet.
Honestly, y'all are like the rednecks at the corner gas, arguing about Fords and Chevys.
In real life, I like the competition. But I think both Musk and Bezos are backing a loser project here. I don't think there is a critical mass of potential customers to make this extremely high maintenance internet delivery service profitable.
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I also wonder about the feasibility. We've had experience sat phones for a while now, and that never really materialized. While my internet totally sucks due to lack of local competition, it is true that if the local duopoly feels a threat from satcoms they can very easily up the bandwidth, lay a little more fiber, give me a $10 off coupon, etc. Also while I have similar reservations on the awesomeness of 5g, I'll bet that becomes a preferred rural alternative. Sure if you are really, really in the boo
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I also wonder about the feasibility. We've had experience sat phones for a while now, and that never really materialized. While my internet totally sucks due to lack of local competition, it is true that if the local duopoly feels a threat from satcoms they can very easily up the bandwidth, lay a little more fiber, give me a $10 off coupon, etc. Also while I have similar reservations on the awesomeness of 5g, I'll bet that becomes a preferred rural alternative. Sure if you are really, really in the boonies you might not even have a cell tower nearby, and you'll want to get satellite internet. But 1.) There aren't that many of you and 2.) alt least based on /. you aren't willing to pay all that much for internet. Combined that does not make for a great market for one sat provider let alone two.
I think same thing applies to international, 3rd world as well.. Still easier and cheaper to build out cell towers and string up cable
We are up against a cadre of people that might have been MAGAs if they were more conservative. Musk can say it, and they will believe him. I was convinced that they worshipped him as a god when we watched his semi tractor accelerate hella faster than a regular diesel semi. They screamed, they yelled, the stood up and clapped and waved their arms in an ecstasy that made me wonder if they would be speaking in tongues next.
Their trigger for this display of worship? An animation that looked like something I
Telescopes (Score:2)
How diabolically clever! (Score:2)
I am in awe of their diabolically clever scheme to outwit their competitors.
"*cackle* Now here's how we're going to outwit them. [turns to face screen and grins]. We're going to hire everyone but the least expensive place--even the one that has never reached orbit! Bwahahaha!"