8 ms·
"If Kuiper succeeds [...]" That's the biggest if clause you will ever see about this because in order for it to succeed at all BO needs to actually launch some
by caiobegotti 6y ago
"If Kuiper succeeds [...]"
That's the biggest if clause you will ever see about this because in order for it to succeed at all BO needs to actually launch something to orbit at least once before we talk about success of a commercial product on top of their rockets.
I follow up SpaceX quite closely, I admit, but any news about products that absolutely depend on the launch capability of BO is vaporware at most and most probably a PR stunt so they look relevant. They need to deliver something, anything, it's that simple.
- akreal 6y agoThey don't have to launch on BO, they can use any launch provider.
- caiobegotti 6y agoYou're right, but the article suggests otherwise. Their deadline to put half of the satellites in orbit is 2026 so it's plenty of time for BO to have launch capability but until they put ONE object in orbit it's all vaporware, unless Amazon says right now Kuiper is open to other launch providers, which I have not seen in any news source yet.
- wtallis 6y agoHalf the satellites is still a lot of satellites. BO would need to ramp up to at least monthly launches sometime in the next two years. SpaceX is only doing a little better than that, and they started sending the Falcon 9 to orbit in 2010.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bryanlarsen 6y agoNew Glenn is a lot bigger than Falcon, though. It has twice the capacity to LEO by weight and more than twice by volume. So if a Kuiper satellite is the same size as a Starlink one, they should be able to launch 120 per flight. 14 flights to get above 1618. That could be done within a single year, although that's a big ask for a company that hasn't hit orbit yet...
- NikolaeVarius 6y agoNew Glenn competes with the Falcon Heavy
- bryanlarsen 6y agoStarlink satellites don't use Falcon Heavy.
- valuearb 6y agoNew Glenn is a paper rocket built around unproven engines.
- choeger 6y agoThey won't launch on spacex, for sure. And there literally is no one else offering the capabilities to do it. The article mentions 10 billion dollars. That is only about 50 launches with the "competition" of SpaceX. Ok, you might get a discount, but still you would have to place 20+ satellites into a launch vehicle and have pretty much one launch per month to meet the requirements. "vaporware" sounds about right to me, tbh.
- xwdv 6y agoWhy not? The money is green and if SpaceX is convinced they could still beat a competitor with Starlink might as well make some extra dough? If Starlink can't beat Kupier they're dead anyway those satellites will go up eventually.
- haggy 6y ago> if SpaceX is convinced they could still beat a competitor That's not really the point though. Amazon is a fierce (and many times dirty) competitor to be up against. If you're competing directly with AWS then you need to take every advantage you can get. If you're trying to build a global satellite network to provide internet access and not having launch capabilities will delay AWS long enough to get a foothold in the market then you take it.
- ethbro 6y agoT-minus X: "Starlink: offering free transit to Azure & GCP."
- lozaning 6y agoEventually someone's going to launch an orbital data center to cut down on round trip latency. You think AWS bandwidth is expensive now lol.
- ethbro 6y agoThought occurred to me, but I imagine heat dispersion would be cost-prohibitive vs terrestrial options. I suppose {sat -> orbital DC -> sat} (latency) or {sat -> orbital DC processing -> ground} (transmission bandwidth) are the primary use cases? Maybe security?
- intotheabyss 6y agoThe only launch provider that reuses rockets is SpaceX, so every other launch provider is at a total disadvantage.
- polytely 6y agoI can't imagine SpaceX helping Amazon to create a competing satellite constellation while they are setting up starlink
- bryanlarsen 6y agoMusk has stated that he has no objections to launching OneWeb's constellation. That may or may not also apply to Kuiper.
- sailfast 6y agoIn general, Musk's approach seems to be: force an industry to be leaps and bounds better by succeeding in that industry in a new way thought very difficult before. Worked for Tesla as well as SpaceX. Same goal for Boring / Hyperloop. Seems like ubiquitous satellite internet would also be a good thing, and SpaceX would make money on the launch to fund Starship. Win-win? Silly logic from an armchair quarterback, but I don;'t think it's as weird as you think.
- martythemaniak 6y agoThese massive constellations don't make financial sense if you have to throw away your rockets every time. That is, they could launch on another rocket, but they'd easily get beaten by SpaceX/Starlink.
- adventured 6y agoAmazon is making enough money now that they don't have to make a lot of sense immediately. They may choose to speculate on a future economic opportunity with concern to missing out on that if they fail to put up the network. Their market dominance also means they can only spend so much of their profit on traditional acquisitions realistically, they're going to be increasingly restricted there. They're also piling up immense amounts of cash, with not much to do with it other than begin kicking it back to shareholders (the same 'problem' Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook have had). Needless to say, Amazon clearly isn't eager to return it to shareholders via a dividend or buying back its stock. Five years from now? They'll be drowning in probably $40+ billion per year in operating profit. They can trivially afford whatever it costs to do the launches with someone other than BO, even if it's very expensive. It doesn't have to make financial sense today.
- shantara 6y ago> ...BO needs to actually launch something to orbit... And they need start launching soon. FCC rules give Amazon until 2026 to launch and start operating at least 50% of the licensed number of satellites - 1618 satellites - or risk their satellite constellation license annulled. To put this timeframe in context, Blue Origin was founded in 2000 and has yet to achieve a single orbital flight.
- zie 6y agoIf we assume: * BO rocket 2x the cargo size * Satellites same size/weight as starlink 120 sats per launch(vs F9's 60). If they have to launch 1618 by 2026, that means they need 14 launches in 6 years. If they only need 1/2 the 1618, they need 7 launches in 6 years. So I think 7 launches(840 sats) it's still in the realm of possibility, but they have to execute everything pretty much flawlessly to make it happen. They can't afford to have many things go wrong. Getting 14 launches done in 6 years would be very ambitious. Unless they are way way further along than they have told the public, this is probably just wishful thinking.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- shantara 6y agoMy wording was ambiguous, so to clarify: their full constellation is 3236 satellites, 1618 is the half amount they need to launch until 2026.
- zie 6y agothanks! I was to lazy to look up the FCC app to know for sure, so I hedged :)
- someperson 6y agoAmazon's obligation to "launch at least half of the total by 2026 to retain the operating license the FCC has granted the company" is designed to stop squatting on the license without delivering service, and it's with the US government NOT the International Telecommunication Union. If Amazon has shown at least some launches done in good faith, expect the FCC to be VERY lenient if Amazon don't meet their goal of launching 1618 out of 3236 satellites. Though if in the year 2026 Amazon has missed their target by a significant amount, expect SpaceX to sue to try to get the spectrum partially re-allocated so they can leverage it for their (likely already fully operational) Starlink service.
- jncraton 6y agoI don't fully understand the negativity around BO. They haven't gone to orbit yet, and they don't run everything they do as a PR campaign the way that SpaceX does, but getting a rocket to orbit isn't that big of a deal these days. We first achieved orbital flight over 50 years ago, and many different groups have achieved the same since then. Given Bezos' deep pockets, why would BO fail where so many other have succeeded in launching payloads to orbit? They appear to be making steady progress, both on reusability and on their BE-4 engine. There doesn't appear to be any real insurmountable obstacles between where they are today and orbital flight. I'm not saying they will absolutely succeed, but their success feels more like a when than an if unless Bezos decides to pull the plug for some reason. Whether they can do this by 2026 is of course a different matter.
- newsclues 6y agoBecause they haven’t done “the hard thing” yet.
- bhupy 6y agoSure, but there doesn't appear to be anything intrinsic to BO that lends itself a particular disadvantage to doing "the hard thing". They appear to have the requisite resources & staff, so predicting that they will never do "the hard thing" seems a bit like spiking the football after the first quarter.
- mlboss 6y agoSpace is hard. Even with the best people and resources there is a high probability of failure. The only way forward is to launch -> fail -> learn -> repeat.
- bhupy 6y agoYes, pith aside, everybody knows that space is hard. The GP commenter is arguing that it's odd to write off BO when they are currently in the process of launch -> fail -> learn -> repeat.
- darksaints 6y agoOnly tangentially related to your comment, but I find it interesting enough to comment anyway. Jeff Bezos is literally the wealthiest man alive, and by some measures, the wealthiest that has ever lived. He could literally buy anything he could ever want. Most people would have gladly retired and lived whatever life they wanted to, and they would have done it billions of dollars ago. And so, the fact that he hasn't retired and is still actively involved in building things shows that he still wants something more in his life. And by observing what he is building, we can infer what it is that the richest man in the world wants. And all I can infer at this point is that his biggest desire is to be Elon Musk. And it's obviously not his wealth that he's envious of. I believe it's the adoration, the faith in his abilities, and excitement of a cult following. All he wants is for people to do for him what you are doing for Musk.
- JackFr 6y ago> And all I can infer at this point is that his biggest desire is to be Elon Musk. That's more an indication of your small thinking and limited imagination rather than Jeff Bezos' motivation.
- valuearb 6y agoFar from the wealthiest ever, based on percentage of GDP. He might not be top 100.