San Francisco, Dusseldorf Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos’ space rivalry dates back 17 years. Over dinner, the Tesla boss and the Amazon founder exchanged views on their space companies SpaceX and Blue Origin – and Musk criticized the rocket motors Bezos was trying out at the time.
“It was pretty clear he was on the wrong track,” Musk recalled in The Space Barons. In fact, Musk made his company SpaceX one of the leading space companies, while Blue Origin struggled with big problems for many years.
But now Bezos is opening a new chapter in the competition – and in space there is still a competition between giants: Amazon signs contracts with Arianespace, Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance (ULA) for a total of 83 rocket launches in five years.
This marks the start of Kuiper, Bezos’ satellite internet. Kuiper is in direct competition with Starlink, SpaceX’s related subsidiary. Amazon wants to bring a total of 3,236 satellites into a low-earth orbit of about 500 kilometers. According to Amazon, this is the largest commercial order for satellite launches to date.
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The battle for global broadband Internet is thus entering a new phase. Amazon wants to offer the Internet via satellite as early as 2024, and it should be fully functional by 2028. However, Starlink has a few years head start. SpaceX has already brought 2110 satellites into “Low Earth Orbit” (Leo) since 2018 and thus offers an Internet connection in 29 countries – including Germany.
Arianespace is scheduled to perform 18 launches
The rivalry between Bezos and Musk is also reflected in the award of the contract for the rocket launches: SpaceX, as the market leader, is not included. “Securing launch capacity across multiple vendors has been a key part of our strategy from the start,” said Rajeev Badyal, vice president of technology for Project Kuiper at Amazon. “It reduces the risk associated with launch vehicle failures.”
The big winner is the French provider Arianespace, which is to carry out a total of 18 launches. “This contract is the largest we have ever signed and marks a major moment in the history of Arianespace,” said Stéphane Israël, CEO of Arianespace. “Project Kuiper builds on European innovation spirit, industrial strength and years of experience and is a great asset to the European launcher industry.”
Amazon depends on Blue Origin’s new European rocket and rocket engine.
(Photo: picture alliance / AP Photo)
With the decision, Amazon is taking some risks. Because both Arianespace and the ULA used Russian engines or Ukrainian components for certain rockets, which are no longer available due to the Ukraine war. This leaves Amazon dependent on the Ariane 6 rocket, which will launch for the first time in 2023, and Blue Origin’s new rocket engine.
However, what every space expert knows: New developments always cause problems, especially with rockets. It often takes years for the technology to run smoothly.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has signed contracts for 12 launches with his “New Glenn,” with options for up to 15 more launches, it said. New Glenn is powered by seven BE-4 engines and its reusable first stage is rated for at least 25 missions.
>> Read also: Mars mission, Internet satellites, rocket launches: Ukraine war paralyzes Europe’s space travel
The ULA gets 38 launches on Vulcan Centaur, its latest heavy lift rocket, which is set to fly on US Blue Origin engines. The launch services agreement also includes investments in infrastructure at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the company said, to increase facility effectiveness and speed operations. The contract complements an existing one for the delivery of nine Atlas V rockets.
“This marks the beginning of an exciting new era for ULA and for the entire American launch industry. With a total of 47 launches of our Atlas and Vulcan carriers, we are proud to launch the majority of this important constellation,” said Tory Bruno, ULA President and CEO.
For Amazon, the Kuiper project is important, it is investing ten billion dollars, and around 1,000 employees are working on it. It is strategically important for the IT giant to interweave its cloud service AWS with it. AWS is the world market leader in cloud computing ahead of Microsoft and Google, but Microsoft is catching up with Azure.
AWS may offer services globally via satellite
With the satellite Internet, AWS can complement its applications and services and offer them in all parts of the world. This ranges from machine learning to artificial intelligence to the analysis of huge amounts of data in the cloud. Customers of both AWS and satellite internet are primarily companies, such as telecommunications groups, who can use it to supplement or expand their networks in rural areas.
In every urban conurbation, the supply of Internet via cable or mobile communications is so reliable, cheap and fast that there is hardly any need for much more expensive satellite access. It remains to be seen whether the remaining customers in “rural areas” will generate enough sales and profits to finance a satellite network.
The Amazon founder opens a new chapter in the competition in space.
(Photo: imago images/ZUMA Wire)
The situation is different for industries such as oil and gas exploration, weather information, surface mining and other industries, as well as government agencies. You can and want to finance additional costs.
One group of customers could also be satellite operators. AWS presented the “AWS Groundstation” service at the “Re:Invent” in-house exhibition in Las Vegas in 2018, a completely cloud-based service that, according to AWS, saves satellite operators up to 80 percent of the usual costs for operating their own ground stations for satellite communication be able.
AWS operates ground stations around the world that customers can log into when they want to transmit data to or from specific satellites. Own expensive ground stations with their maintenance and operating costs are no longer necessary.
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