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Who says Amazon might not use SpaceX to bring the satellites in orbit?
by kerng 6y ago
Who says Amazon might not use SpaceX to bring the satellites in orbit?
- _Microft 6y agoJeff. I think he would rather personally subsidize every New Glenn launch than letting Amazon launch their satellites with SpaceX.
- ianai 6y agoWhat’s that based on? Is there bad blood there?
- _Microft 6y agoJeff 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 agoI 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
- kerng 6y agoThanks for sharing that, seems to still be out a bit - it took SpaceX quite a while to make Falcon 9 solid. So, if New Shephards first launch is next yearz it will probably take another 2-4 years until all glitches that appear are fixed. So I wouldn't be surprised if they send the first batches of satellites using rockets of other manufacturers.