Amazon’s Project Kuiper is more than the company’s response to SpaceX • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon’s Project Kuiper is more than the company’s response to SpaceX

#111

Post by lozaning » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #87

haggy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

T-minus X: "Starlink: offering free transit to Azure & GCP."

Eventually someone's going to launch an orbital data center to cut down on round trip latency. You think AWS bandwidth is expensive now lol.

Re: Amazon’s Project Kuiper is more than the company’s response to SpaceX

#112

Post by pavon » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

kemiller wrote: post #34

chmullig wrote: post #3

I feel like this massively overstates the advantages of an AWS to satellite link. They aren’t going to put tiny regions in space, so it’s just about data transit. Nobody would suggest AWS should start a cell phone company or fiber ISP just for bundling that with AWS. IP, possibly with a VPN, is a very solved issue for AWS access. It’s how 100% of their customers use AWS now, after all.

LEO satellites have potential for very low latency over large distances which could be very valuable for multi-zone customers and Amazon itself. Lasers in a vacuum.

But also low bandwidth/area. Which means that this won't be useful for any significant amount of backhaul, only for last mile service in low density areas. Their groundstations will certainly have good connections to AWS, no doubt, but I don't see a huge market for good connection to AWS from sparse area.s

There are some niches, for example oil/gas extraction like the article mentioned, but nothing huge. Maybe Amazon plans on making a play for in-car services providing both the internet connection, and back-end in AWS. But car internet connections have been shifting towards bluetooth as everyone already has phones and service, and it is wasteful to have another service for the car.

Re: Amazon’s Project Kuiper is more than the company’s response to SpaceX

#113

Post by TrueDuality » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

jncraton wrote: post #25

caiobegotti wrote: post #4

"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…

I 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 succee…

I'm not an expert in the field, but I do work with the space industry and closely follow a lot of the developments from all of the different groups attempting commercial rocket endeavours.

The big thing that keeps coming up around Blue Origin is that still to date they're entirely unproven for any real flights. They're older than SpaceX and most of their lives have been exclusively focused on sub-orbital flights, and most of that was centered around the "space tourism" business.

They switched in 2014 to targeting orbital missions and from the outside it looks like that was only done for a contract with ULA (specifically this is the creation of the BE-4 engine). After that they started taking orbital options seriously, proposing the New Glenn as its own orbital launch vehicle the following year.

It may also now be worth pointing out that the BE-4 wasn't independently designed to work with the New Glenn or for any specific mission characteristics that Blue Origin had planned. It is supposed to be a drop in replacement for the RD-180 engines we were purchasing from Russia for the Atlas V which is a major design constraint.

You're also right that they haven't been performing as much PR as SpaceX but I don't think that's by choice. Every time they've had a success or an attempt at success they've done very large PR campaigns and even taunt Elon publicly but those are few and far between.

They have absolutely had successes but they've also missed all of their target deadlines they've announced publicly and with their contracts. They have yet to have a successful payload to orbit and now they're talking about using a non-existent platform to launch 1,618 satellites to orbit by 2026. If they get the same density of satellites as Starlink (56/mission I believe, didn't look this up) that is about 27 launches.

I hate to toot SpaceX's horn, but they're currently the gold standard on rapid development of rocketry so it's worth comparing their time line to this one proposed by Blue Origin. As a starting point Blue Origin has not launched their BE-4 rocket into orbit yet much less with a payload so they haven't reached the beginning of it yet:

* September 2008: SpaceX successfully gets their rocket into orbit

* July 2009: SpaceX successfully gets first commercial payload into orbit

* June 2010: The Falcon 9 v1.0 platform has its first launch

* 2010-2013: SpaceX launches 7 missions

* 2014: SpaceX launches 6 missions

* 2015: SpaceX launches 7 missions

* July 2016: SpaceX launches its 27th mission

* January 2017: SpaceX launches its 27th successful mission

So at least in my opinion Blue Origin may not entirely be vaporware, but their time line seems unreasonable. To be successful in this endeavour using exclusively Blue Origin rockets, while taking on no additional launches, they would have to be more than twice as fast at development as SpaceX while using hardware that was designed for another purpose, in an market segment that they didn't start in.

Re: Amazon’s Project Kuiper is more than the company’s response to SpaceX

#114

Post by JumpCrisscross » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 7:04 PM UTC

apendleton wrote: post #83

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In what way would Starlink have any less access to AWS? It’s a distribution advantage. To sign up a new customer, Starlink has to...sign up a new customer. Contracts, configuration, payment details, integration. Kuiper, on the other hand, has to get them to click a button on a dashboard.

But in either case you need to acquire and mount a physical doodad to your house (or vehicle or office or whatever), right? Entering a credit card number again seems comparatively inconsequential in either case.

> Entering a credit card number again seems comparatively inconsequential in either case

For an individual, probably. For an enterprise, skipping new vendor procurement is a material advantage. I don't think it's a decisive one. But it's an advantage nonetheless.

Re: Amazon’s Project Kuiper is more than the company’s response to SpaceX

#115

Post by TrueDuality » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 7:11 PM UTC

chmullig wrote: post #3

I feel like this massively overstates the advantages of an AWS to satellite link. They aren’t going to put tiny regions in space, so it’s just about data transit. Nobody would suggest AWS should start a cell phone company or fiber ISP just for bundling that with AWS. IP, possibly with a VPN, is a very solved issue for AWS access. It’s how 100% of their customers use AWS now, after all.

What they do have though is a large number of data centers all over the world with backbone internet connections. By turning each of them into a ground station they will have an advantage.

SpaceX is going to have to create ground stations all over the world at sites with good view of the sky, get redundant backbone connections to them, and continuously pay for those sites. Good views of the sky rule out downtown locations in major cities due to skyscrapers. Outskirts of cities will likely not have the infrastructure for those redundant connections and will have to be permitted, and installed.

The Amazon data centers are usually already at ideal locations, and are effectively self-sustaining financially already instead of being an additional cost.

I don't think any of Amazon's existing products can provide them an edge, and Starlink has quite the head start in orbit, but Amazon does have a huge head start on the ground.

Re: Amazon’s Project Kuiper is more than the company’s response to SpaceX

#116

Post by count » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 7:15 PM UTC

apendleton wrote: post #83

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In what way would Starlink have any less access to AWS? It’s a distribution advantage. To sign up a new customer, Starlink has to...sign up a new customer. Contracts, configuration, payment details, integration. Kuiper, on the other hand, has to get them to click a button on a dashboard.

But in either case you need to acquire and mount a physical doodad to your house (or vehicle or office or whatever), right? Entering a credit card number again seems comparatively inconsequential in either case.

AWS Downlink between regions for higher cost but lower latency global xfer? It might not all be cloud->office, but maybe intra-cloud.

Re: Amazon’s Project Kuiper is more than the company’s response to SpaceX

#117

Post by nickysielicki » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 7:37 PM UTC

I know this might sound a bit cheap but I think there are national security concerns that are worth mentioning. You simply can’t rely on satellites for domestic backhaul unless you’re prepared for it to go away as soon as a war starts.

If a simpleton like me is capable of taking a Yagi into my backyard and talking on AMSAT birds with a 5 watt handheld radio, it’s not entirely unreasonable to believe that someone well funded would be capable of tracking and destroying a cubesat in orbit.

Re: Amazon’s Project Kuiper is more than the company’s response to SpaceX

#118

Post by HeadsUpHigh » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 7:39 PM UTC

jncraton wrote: post #107

mbell wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> getting a rocket to orbit isn't that big of a deal these days. There are have only been maybe a dozen LEO+ launch families developed ever, and less than a handful by private companies. There exist only 3 active systems in the same category as New Glenn (Long March 5, Delta IV, Falcon Heavy). Getting anything more than a toy to orbit is _extremely_ difficult, and many have lost untold millions trying to get just a t…

I shouldn't have said that it isn't a big deal these days, as that devalues the scope of the achievement of getting a payload to orbit. I simply mean that orbital flight is something that we are able to do with the proper funding and resources. I still think that Bezos can do it if he wants to. If SpaceX were for sale, Bezos could buy them 5 times over (as of their valuation based on their February funding). I have t…

>but their success isn't magical, and it should be repeatable for another company.

Not 100% true, SpaceX went against a market that was not only disposable but also extremely inefficiently built. Today's market is significantly more competitive both from SpaceX's side but the other launchers have also decreased prices and are in the process of building cheaper rockets as well.

Re: Amazon’s Project Kuiper is more than the company’s response to SpaceX

#119

Post by gecko » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 7:43 PM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #117

I know this might sound a bit cheap but I think there are national security concerns that are worth mentioning. You simply can’t rely on satellites for domestic backhaul unless you’re prepared for it to go away as soon as a war starts. If a simpleton like me is capable of taking a Yagi into my backyard and talking on AMSAT birds with a 5 watt handheld radio, it’s not entirely unreasonable to believe that someone well…

That's honestly an entirely legitimate point, but no nation, to my knowledge, at this point in time, has the ability to take out thousands of satellites, which is what either this or SpaceX's variant use. Besides which, taking out that many satellites would run a very real, very likely risk of kicking off an actual end to space exploration for a century while we waited for the space dust to settle. I'm not saying "no," but I'm saying "less likely than you think."

Re: Amazon’s Project Kuiper is more than the company’s response to SpaceX

#120

Post by valuearb » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 7:51 PM UTC

cma wrote: post #108

zie wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 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…

SpaceX has claimed we will definitely have point to point rocket travel in 7-8 years, in production, for between the cost of a coach and business class ticket [1]. Long haul airlines will begin getting phased out according to them. Since reliability is going to fundamentally change by that much in order to have massive passenger rockets replacing jet travel, Blue Origin has nothing to worry about. There is a magic in…

Musk has laid out some pretty big visions he hasn’t yet achieved (see Mars, colonization) and doesn’t always meet his aggressive deadlines, but he’s actually accomplishing a great deal. An rocket with 80 commercial launches, landing and reusing hypersonic first stages (and now fairings), the worlds first full flow staged combustion engine, the most powerful rocket in the world (Falcon Heavy), StarLink with already 655 satellites, and that’s just SpaceX accomplishments.

What has BO done other than land a suborbital rocket that doesn’t achieve more than tiny fraction of orbital velocity? They haven’t even had a person ride it yet, let alone a paying customer on board.