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

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

#81

Post by choeger »

dogma1138 wrote: post #15
choeger wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They 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 m…

India and Russia can also provide a much cheaper alternative to ULA. You assume that Amazon has to use a US launch provider which isn’t the case.

I do not know that India has the capacity. Russia could, potentially, reduce the cost of Angara to about what an expendable Falcon 9 costs. Call it $50M per launch. But then you have to ship the satellites to Russia. Amazon still need to acquire 6 launches a year (assuming they can launch 60 satellites at once, which is totally unclear atm). That would be more than the currently planned launches and might require substantial investment into the production facilities.

So far there are at least five "maybes" in the equation:

1. amazon launching from Russia in large numbers 2. Khrunichev lowering the price of a single Angara significantly 3. Khrunichev being able to produce enough rockets in the first place 4. amazon being able to stack their satellites into the Angara 5. amazon being able to produce enough working satellites in the remaining time frame.

For me that still counts as vaporware.

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

#82

Post by bryanlarsen »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #37
bryanlarsen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New 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...

New Glenn competes with the Falcon Heavy

Starlink satellites don't use Falcon Heavy.

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

#83

Post by apendleton »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #59
paulsutter wrote: post #47

Bizarre claim. In what way would Starlink have any less access to AWS? Its... the internet > “If Kuiper succeeds, Amazon can not only offer global satellite broadband access—it can include that access as part of its Amazon Web Services (AWS), which already offers resources for cloud computing, machine learning, data analytics, and more”

> 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.

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

#84

Post by liability »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #64
Lazare wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> getting a rocket to orbit isn't that big of a deal these days. Arguably true, but to the extent that is is true, it makes BOs failures to do so given how much time and money has been spent on it rather inexplicable, no? Either they're doing something hard (and might fail), or they're doing something easy so why haven't they succeeded? Either way you cut it, it's a bad look. > They appear to be making steady progres…

> It's certainly slow. Slow compared to what? Compared to SpaceX they're slow, but compared to everybody else? NASA/Boeing's SLS program started in 2005 as Constellation. It's still over a year away from it's first test launch and several years away from fully operational status. China's Long March 5 started in 2007 and it can be argued that it wasn't fully operational until this year. ULA's Vulcan, started in 2014 i…

Slow compared to Rocket Lab; 11 years to orbit, compared to Blue Origin's 20+ and counting.

Slow compared to Orbital Sciences, who took 8 years in the 1980s.

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

#85

Post by apendleton »

riffraff wrote: post #18
jpalomaki wrote: post #2

Could Amazon Prime integration be more relevant than AWS integration? More services for consumers against fixed monthly fee.

yeah, this could be v2.0 of "kindle comes with global data connectivity".

This service will operate in a similar band to Starlink, which requires a pizza-box-sized fixed receiver with a clear view of the sky. And SpaceX was only able to get it even this small due to development of new phased-array antenna technology, which, at least as far as we know, nobody else has replicated (at least at a consumer-accessible price point).

All of which is to say: current technology, and physics, probably won't ever allow this to be baked into a Kindle.

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

#86

Post by apendleton »

baptou12 wrote: post #76

To some extent Tesla could be Starlink's AWS. Every Tesla user could be a potential starlink customer. Could we even imagine a more efficient data collection?

The service isn't expected to work very well in the urban areas where I assume most current Tesla owners live, so I'm not sure this is a particularly natural fit. Also, it requires a bulky receiver.

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

#87

Post by ethbro »

haggy wrote: post #19
xwdv wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why 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.

> 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."

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

#88

Post by dragonwriter »

someperson wrote: post #48
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…

Amazon'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 launc…

> 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.

That...depends. The FCC has been rather politicized recently, and shifts approximately with US Presidential Administrations; if when the time came the Administration was as anti-Bezos as the current one, I wouldn't be surprised to see it hold Amazon to the letter of the terms whether or not the intent of the rules was different and usual practice involved fairly easy modification as long as good-faith effort was shown.

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

#89

Post by glxxyz »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56
kemiller wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Lasers in a vacuum Wait, Kuiper is doing lasers?

The idea is for laser crosslinks between satellites. Light travels about 30% slower in fiber than in a vacuum.

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

#90

Post by VectorLock »

riffraff wrote: post #18
jpalomaki wrote: post #2

Could Amazon Prime integration be more relevant than AWS integration? More services for consumers against fixed monthly fee.

yeah, this could be v2.0 of "kindle comes with global data connectivity".

Kindle's connectivity was really pushing the boundaries at the time, this would be on a whole different planet.
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