4 ms·

Since this story came out a few days ago, does anyone know if Amazon has commented on whether or not they plan to launch these 'themselves' / with Blue Origin?

gexla 6y ago
Right, seems like the first question people would be interested in hearing an answer to. I assume there is no answer yet. With a quick check, I was surprised to see that Blue Origin is developing a rocket which would be capable of launching these things (launch in 2021?)
- kiba 6y ago
  But could they launch as cheaply or as often as SpaceX's Falcon 9, which is years ahead? SpaceX isn't resting on its laurel either, with their R&D effort on Starship.
  - gexla 6y ago
    Maybe they don't need to launch as cheaply. SpaceX wasn't the first to the idea. There are other players and these companies didn't have their own rockets. The numbers must be good enough to work even with pre-SpaceX launch costs.
    - verdverm 6y ago
      Elon said that the satellites are now cheaper to build than the cost to get them to orbit, and that they need starship to make it financially viable, iirc. He says this during a keynote with the US Air Force about 4 months ago. He also says a ton of other interesting things as well.
  - kerng 6y ago
    Who says Amazon might not use SpaceX to bring the satellites in orbit?
    - _Microft 6y ago
      Jeff. I think he would rather personally subsidize every New Glenn launch than letting Amazon launch their satellites with SpaceX.
      - ianai 6y ago
        What’s that based on? Is there bad blood there?
        _Microft 6y ago
        Jeff Bezos himself is owner of a rocket company called "Blue Origin". This company is developing a heavy-lift rocket awhich hasn't flown yet though. They already have some experience with booster return, as they have a small(er) vehicle serving as (future) science and tourism platform that can shoot the capsule with passengers and/or payload straight up over the Kármán line and have the booster return to the launch site. Since they already had achieved this, Bezos tweeted "Welcome to the club" when Elon Musk's SpaceX had their first successful rocket landing. If that's appropriate is subject for debate, as the conditions experienced are not comparable. Blue Origin also tried to patent landing a rocket booster on a boat while SpaceX was planning to exactly do that which lead to some bad blood.
        kerng 6y ago
        I think Blue Origin is more focused towards possibly building a lunar lander. The launches I have see were with comparable tiny rockets, unless they launch thousands of them, they won't carry the satellites needed in time. Curious to get more informed opinions on this actually.
        _Microft 6y ago
        "New Shepard" is only for tourists or scientists running experiments in the capsule. Any real payload would be launched with "New Glenn": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Glenn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Glenn
nickik 6y ago
The reality is, that in the current space market, if you don't have some way to produce launches for yourself, your gone have a bad time. The GTO market, long the stable of many big rockets, is slowing and not gone pick up. At the same time every government tries to prop up its domestic industry. One the few commercial launches, beating SpaceX on price is just not gone happen unless you simply fly with a massive lost, you need a couple of years ramp at least. The other big thing it government launches, SpaceX and ULA are very established and its pretty unlikely that Blue will get deep into these anytime soon. SpaceX is gone continue to have most commercial Space Station buissness. ULA and SpaceX will likely again be selected for the military over the next couple years. One of the reason SpaceX does Starlink is that it is an amazing driver for scale and re-usability for their rocket buissness. This year alone SpaceX without Starlink does only a few launches, not enough, and this is a year where most others did very few launches. Blue and Bezos will have made the same calculation, you simply can't New Glenn sized rockets without that.
- __s 6y ago
  In every instance you said "gone" you should've said "going"

gexla 6y ago

Right, seems like the first question people would be interested in hearing an answer to. I assume there is no answer yet. With a quick check, I was surprised to see that Blue Origin is developing a rocket which would be capable of launching these things (launch in 2021?)

kiba 6y ago
But could they launch as cheaply or as often as SpaceX's Falcon 9, which is years ahead? SpaceX isn't resting on its laurel either, with their R&D effort on Starship.
- gexla 6y ago
  Maybe they don't need to launch as cheaply. SpaceX wasn't the first to the idea. There are other players and these companies didn't have their own rockets. The numbers must be good enough to work even with pre-SpaceX launch costs.
  - verdverm 6y ago
    Elon said that the satellites are now cheaper to build than the cost to get them to orbit, and that they need starship to make it financially viable, iirc. He says this during a keynote with the US Air Force about 4 months ago. He also says a ton of other interesting things as well.
- kerng 6y ago
  Who says Amazon might not use SpaceX to bring the satellites in orbit?
  - _Microft 6y ago
    Jeff. I think he would rather personally subsidize every New Glenn launch than letting Amazon launch their satellites with SpaceX.
    - ianai 6y ago
      What’s that based on? Is there bad blood there?
      - _Microft 6y ago
        Jeff Bezos himself is owner of a rocket company called "Blue Origin". This company is developing a heavy-lift rocket awhich hasn't flown yet though. They already have some experience with booster return, as they have a small(er) vehicle serving as (future) science and tourism platform that can shoot the capsule with passengers and/or payload straight up over the Kármán line and have the booster return to the launch site. Since they already had achieved this, Bezos tweeted "Welcome to the club" when Elon Musk's SpaceX had their first successful rocket landing. If that's appropriate is subject for debate, as the conditions experienced are not comparable. Blue Origin also tried to patent landing a rocket booster on a boat while SpaceX was planning to exactly do that which lead to some bad blood.
        kerng 6y ago
        I think Blue Origin is more focused towards possibly building a lunar lander. The launches I have see were with comparable tiny rockets, unless they launch thousands of them, they won't carry the satellites needed in time. Curious to get more informed opinions on this actually.
        _Microft 6y ago
        "New Shepard" is only for tourists or scientists running experiments in the capsule. Any real payload would be launched with "New Glenn": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Glenn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Glenn

nickik 6y ago

The reality is, that in the current space market, if you don't have some way to produce launches for yourself, your gone have a bad time. The GTO market, long the stable of many big rockets, is slowing and not gone pick up. At the same time every government tries to prop up its domestic industry. One the few commercial launches, beating SpaceX on price is just not gone happen unless you simply fly with a massive lost, you need a couple of years ramp at least. The other big thing it government launches, SpaceX and ULA are very established and its pretty unlikely that Blue will get deep into these anytime soon. SpaceX is gone continue to have most commercial Space Station buissness. ULA and SpaceX will likely again be selected for the military over the next couple years. One of the reason SpaceX does Starlink is that it is an amazing driver for scale and re-usability for their rocket buissness. This year alone SpaceX without Starlink does only a few launches, not enough, and this is a year where most others did very few launches. Blue and Bezos will have made the same calculation, you simply can't New Glenn sized rockets without that.

__s 6y ago
In every instance you said "gone" you should've said "going"