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Amazon's Starlink Competitor Tops 100 Satellites (cnbc.com) 38

Posted by BeauHD from the one-prime-delivery-at-a-time dept.
After four weather-related delays, Amazon successfully launched 24 more Kuiper internet satellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9, bringing its total to 102. CNBC reports: SpaceX's Starlink is currently the dominant provider of low-earth orbit satellite internet, with a constellation of roughly 8,000 satellites and about 5 million customers worldwide. Amazon is racing to get more of its Kuiper satellites into space to meet a deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC requires that Amazon have about 1,600 satellites in orbit by the end of July 2026, with the full 3,236-satellite constellation launched by July 2029.

Amazon has booked up to 83 launches, including three rides with SpaceX. While the company is still in the early stages of building out its constellation, Amazon has already inked deals with governments as it hopes to begin commercial service later this year.

Amazon's Starlink Competitor Tops 100 Satellites More | Reply

Amazon's Starlink Competitor Tops 100 Satellites

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  • these constellations are only gonna be good if they mesh together; without interoperability whats the point OF CLUTTERING THE SKY?

    • There's no "clutter" in space. There are 316,700 bald eagles just in the continental USA -- presumably about a 1/20th of them would be in the air at a given time. Would you say the sky is cluttered with bald eagles? Even if they were on the exact same orbital plane (they aren't) they are many miles from each other. If there's one washing machine size object in San Francisco the other would be over San Jose. There are 5000 commercial airplanes in the air over the USA at any given time (over 20x more than the

      • There's no "clutter" in space. There are 316,700 bald eagles just in the continental USA -- presumably about a 1/20th of them would be in the air at a given time. Would you say the sky is cluttered with bald eagles? Even if they were on the exact same orbital plane (they aren't) they are many miles from each other. If there's one washing machine size object in San Francisco the other would be over San Jose. There are 5000 commercial airplanes in the air over the USA at any given time (over 20x more than the number of Starlink satellites there'll be after the full constellation is built). Is the sky cluttered with airplanes??

        There is more to it than that. Orbital mechanics and impacts with small objects and debris at orbital speeds will send a spray of that debris in many different directions. Some accelerated or decelerated into different orbits. At present, the ISS has to move around to avoid space junk, The Space Shuttle had been damaged by debris.

        The results of collisions have a much bigger footprint than just the satellite if something is destroyed.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        There's no "clutter" in space. There are 316,700 bald eagles just in the continental USA -- presumably about a 1/20th of them would be in the air at a given time. Would you say the sky is cluttered with bald eagles?

        If you were viewing the sky from the center of the Earth, maybe. The main differences between bald eagles and satellites are altitude and speed.

        Satellites are flying at a high speed at high altitudes, which means when you take long exposures from the ground, you get streaks from the reflection of the sun off of those satellites, and you'll get some of that that almost without regard to when you take the photo or where you are at the time unless you carefully limit your photo to a small area of the sky.

        Bald

    • Re:MOAR (Score:4, Insightful)

      by phayes ( 202222 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2025 @08:01AM (#65584258) Homepage

      First off, none of the people I know that use Starlink see any need to mesh with any other network. Secondly, Starlink is the only SAT ISP using phased array antennas & if/when any others appear commercially, each mesh operator will be using different frequency bands that the antennas need to be tuned to so WTF is there to be "interoperable" with?

      If you want to say "I hate Musk" then just say that. I agree+respect that opinion more than dumb bullshit.

    • Uh....have you heard of "profit motive" ?

    • > without interoperability whats the point

      Competition lowers prices and increases value.

      A monopoly or design-by-committee would just ossify.

      I can't hook up my DSL modem to Comcast or Community Fiber but that's fine.

  • There's no "clutter" in space. There are 316,700 bald eagles just in the continental USA -- presumably about a 1/20th of them would be in the air at a given time. Would you say the sky is cluttered with bald eagles? Even if they were on the exact same orbital plane (they aren't) they are many miles from each other. If there's one washing machine size object in San Francisco the other would be over San Jose. There are 5000 commercial airplanes in the air over the USA at any given time (over 20x more than th

    • imagine them dropping their bird poop with 17,500mph on your windshield.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Bald eagles rarely collide at thousands of mph, and hence don't need anywhere near as much distance.

      If you said commercial aircraft, you might have a point, though. But there the minimum distance is something like 2 nautical miles if they're at the same altitude.

      Do the maths on that, scaling up the speed from ~600mph to ~17000mph, and get back to me.

      It's becoming increasingly difficult to find safe launch windows, and that's been a problem for decades now.

      • Bald eagles rarely collide at thousands of mph, and hence don't need anywhere near as much distance.

        It might be nice to soar with the Eagles, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines...

    • There's no "clutter" in space. There are 316,700 bald eagles just in the continental USA -- presumably about a 1/20th of them would be in the air at a given time. Would you say the sky is cluttered with bald eagles?

      Bald eagles in the sky are a natural occurrence. Coms satellites are not.

      Spacefaring nations should be held responsible for hauling their dead orbital junk out of the sky. You could do that now with robotic "pusher drones" launched into orbit that are guided from place to place and nudge dead junk into burning up over the ocean.

  • It seems odd to me ..that SpaceX would provide lifts to their competitor. The only conclusion I can come to,is that Amazon and Elon Musk are not actually going to compete in this area.
    • SpaceX sells space on their rockets to anyone willing to pay for it, competitor, government, or someone wanting to launch their favorite baseball card into space. Ignoring that for a minute, it is actually in their interest to have a competitor, especially if that competitor is barely hitting the minimum service level required.

    • It seems odd to me ..that SpaceX would provide lifts to their competitor. The only conclusion I can come to,is that Amazon and Elon Musk are not actually going to compete in this area.

      If someone pays, Spacex is probably required to provide.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jaa101 ( 627731 )

        Businesses are free to refuse customers.

        In this case, SpaceX became so successful at launching satellites that it ran out of customers; there just weren't enough satellites that needed launching. So they created StarLink to become their own best customer. Getting orders from StarLink competitors is the icing on the cake.

        Also, having competition helps keep antitrust action away. Remember when Microsoft bailed out Apple?

        • Businesses are free to refuse customers.

          The issue is that Spacex is not the ruler of space. They are a contractor, just like the contractors in the Apollo program. If Spacex can refuse to take cargo to orbit, well, I don't know the contract they signed with NASA as a contractor - they are probably in violation of that contract.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

            If Spacex can refuse to take cargo to orbit, well, I don't know the contract they signed with NASA as a contractor - they are probably in violation of that contract.

            That's a business agreement they already made. They can still refuse to make new agreements with possible customers.

    • And yet, people expect Apple and Google to be nice to competitors.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Sertis ( 2789687 )
      This is a good thing, providers should offer services to competitors in other markets, otherwise we would end up with more oligopolies like Visa and Mastercard. Though it wouldn't be surprising if Musk and Bezos had a handshake deal to create a duopoly just so they can keep the government off their backs through plausible deniability while cornering the market.

  • You do realize that SpaceX launched those satellites, right?

    • I suppose Kuiper can still set some ceiling on what Starlink (with no alternative) could charge, but certainly as a "competitor" will never beat Starlink by riding on its coattails. It would be interesting to get more backstory on why SpaceX would do this at all. Is there a regulation for equal-ish access? Are they under threat of anti-trust action? Does Musk just think it's worth it to have some lame 'competitor'? Inquiring minds want to know.

  • They have to pay a hefty price for launchs (150 mil) while Musk is just refueling the rocket after its return and send several dozen of his own for MUCH cheaper. (15 mil)

  • I was hoping that blocking access to space due to space junk was 100 years away. I'm glad to see that it will happen in my own lifetime.

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