Amazon is getting ready to launch a lot of broadband satellites

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/07/amazon-is-getting-ready-to-launch-a-lot-of-broadband-satellites/

by LinuxBender • 3 years ago

43 66 3 years ago

philwelch2• 3 years ago

...assuming the launch vehicles are good to go.

All told, Amazon has purchased 77 launches: 38 Vulcan launches, plus nine flights on ULA's soon-to-retire Atlas V, 18 Ariane 6 rockets, and 12 New Glenn missions, with a contract option for 15 more.

All three of the new launch vehicles have seen repeated delays. Also note that Vulcan and New Glenn both use Blue Origin's BE-4 engine.

eco• 3 years ago

Also note that Vulcan and New Glenn both use Blue Origin's BE-4 engine.

One of those engines destined for Vulcan's maiden flight exploded during qualification testing recently.

I think a lot will have to go right going forward for Amazon to reach the July 2026 deadline for half deployment.

allenrb• 3 years ago

I will bet a nice, cold beer that some of those satellites end up riding to orbit on top of Falcon 9 rockets. Too much has to go absolutely right for them otherwise.

No doubt this will irritate Jeff to no end. I hear he’s not a big SpaceX fan.

philwelch2• 3 years ago

I would be shocked if this happened unless Amazon’s hand was somehow forced by shareholders. Even if none of the rockets fly when Amazon expects them to, it’s more likely for Amazon to quietly drop the whole project than go to SpaceX. It’s going to take years of delays for Amazon to realize that their launch partners aren’t gonna work out, and by then the market opportunity will be over.

Frankly, the whole satellite deal always smelled like self-dealing to me in the first place.

binkHN• 3 years ago

Does anyone know how many satellites before things get too crowded? 100,000? 1 million?

asynchronous• 3 years ago

Space is really, really big. And, orbits can happen at different distances from the Earth.

As long as we don’t overcommit LEO satellites we can keep putting things in GEO orbit for probably a very long time.

Retric2• 3 years ago

Depends on execution, we could have billions of satellites without huge problems. But Kessler syndrome could happen even just with the amount of satellites already in orbit if people had been actively malicious. So, the “limits” are mostly just a question of what assumptions you’re making.

JumpCrisscross• 3 years ago

Kessler syndrome could happen even just with the amount of satellite

Kessler as in a catastrophic loss of satellites. In LEO, it wouldn’t be a denial of space programme, nor even a systemic issue—there aren’t high enough orbital energies.

paxys• 3 years ago

There are 1.5 billion cars in the world, and they all drive on a single plane on a very small percentage of the surface. Now increase the circumference by a lot and add a whole new dimension. I think we'll be fine.

tasn• 3 years ago

Not disagreeing with the conclusion, but cars are almost always stationary (parked) and when they do move they are many orders of magnitude slower than satellites. Which means it's not an obvious 1:1 comparison.

robbiep2• 3 years ago

It’s a great analogy but to nitpick a little I wouldn’t say the circumference is expanded ‘a lot’ - they’re generally in LEO at 5-600km so an additional 1000 km which is essentially 3,141.5 ish kilometres on top of 40,000ish - under 8%?

Of course, each additional orbital plane is basically another set of roads but for all the internet sat constellations being planned extra distance = lag, hence we’re going to see the most growth in that LEO category

zulban• 3 years ago

One critical thing you're missing is that when cars smash into each other, the debris stops moving soon, and a spec doesn't completely destroy other cars a week later.

SilasX• 3 years ago

But cars constantly have traffic jams, so this doesn’t work as an argument a fortriori (basically, showing that a generous bound has been loosened).

raydiatian2• 3 years ago

I’m excited for the part where interstellar travel stops being a viable human endeavor because we littered LEO with more of fucking Jeff Bezos’ boxes.

jkmcf• 3 years ago

But, think of the astronomers!

These LEO satellite internet companies need to pay a tax to fund more space telescopes!

bryanlarsen4• 3 years ago

If there are 500 billion satellites evenly distributed under an altitude of 1200km, each satellite would have 1km3 of space.

zdragnar3• 3 years ago

Given that low earth orbit satellites supposedly travel around 17,000 miles per hour, that is a frighteningly small amount of space. If we're voting, I say let's not get that crowded.

fouc• 3 years ago

It amuses me to think we could inadvertently solve for global warming by having so many satellites that we start blocking out the sun.

supercanuck• 3 years ago

Starlink satellites are designed to manuever and burn up in the atmosphere once they have reached the end of their lifespan.

taylorportman• 3 years ago

What becomes of the satellite powder, do they seed clouds, reflect sunlight, etc. Especially to consider the question of maximum capacity.

ChatGTP• 3 years ago

I don't know but maybe we'll start to see the earth cool a little :)

jonbaer• 3 years ago

Enough to eventually block out the sun :-) https://satellitetracker3d.com

ramshanker• 3 years ago

Any space program which involves a new Rocket is essentially a Rocket program.

- Someone at NASA.

bsder• 3 years ago

Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #39:

39. Any exploration program which "just happens" to include a new launch vehicle is, de facto, a launch vehicle program.

See: https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html

morkalork• 3 years ago

I think I'm going to steal and adapt that quote for any new product underpinned by a new-to-us bit of tech.

eigenhombre• 3 years ago

Launch the Hypno Drones.

placesalt2• 3 years ago

Has anyone heard much about the Telesat Lightspeed program?

As far as I can tell, there is no regular consumer access planned for it. It seems like a missed opportunity on their part.

MegaDeKay2• 3 years ago

LightSpeed is indeed all backhaul. Whether it is a missed opportunity depends on how you look at it. Go direct consumer and you are competing directly against Amazon and StarLink. I guess TeleSat believes the bigger opportunity is going where these companies are not.

And I gotta say that "Lightspeed" is a hell of a misnomer given the rate that this program is plodding along. The longer it slides, the more that StarLink etc eat their lunch.

takeda2• 3 years ago

It's crazy that this economically makes more sense than providing the Internet over a wire.

Can we have a law passed that would mandate to lease the last mile to others (kind of like phone companies were required phone lines for DSL) so once again we can have competition?

It is just dumb to require every ISP to run a dedicated line to your house.

paulryanrogers• 3 years ago

In the US the regulators have been captured or are neutered. Attempts to install effective regulators are stalled until they withdraw from the appointment process.

elif2• 3 years ago

This is how it works in Holland with Open Access fiber lines https://hollandcityfiber.com/about-holland-city-fiber/

The fiber itself is owned and maintained by the public and any number of private ISP's can offer service over it. Changing ISP provider is a software decision and as such the average cost is 42 euro/mo

sofixa2• 3 years ago

Similar story in France, ISPs have to give each other access at regulated costs, after an initial grace period (if an ISP builds a new line they have exclusivity on it for 1-2 years, to still incentivise investment). Internet is broadly affordable, and there are tons of villages and towns in the middle of nowhere with proud "commune fibrée" sign on their entrance. (Ironically sometimes such villages and towns are better connected than midsized cities due to the costs involved).

caladin• 3 years ago

First time I see someone plainly refer to 'Holland' and it's not in The Netherlands but actually a city in Michigan.

Checked on a map and it's actually near a place called Zeeland, which is also in The Netherlands. Wow "Noordeloos" also sounds Dutch. I guess they just have many Dutch-named towns over there.

quechimba2• 3 years ago

In the village where my brother lives there are no wires. There is a 4G tower but it runs on solar panels and the connection isn't very stable on cloudy days. I spoke to a person who works at a company in that area that uses Starlink. One satellite dish would probably be enough to provide Internet for the entire village.

takeda2• 3 years ago

That's true, but they aren't doing this to provide internet to villages. As you pointed out, there's not much demand there and that's why no one bothers to provide internet access (I guess the good thing with Starlink and Amazon's version of it is that once it works, it should work in those places too).

Anyway the real reason they are doing it is that is extremely hard to enter the ISP space. It's not even the cost of fiber to run to every home, it is the cost of laying it and all the hoops the existing monopoly will use it.

Google has tried and failed. What often happened is that when they enter market with its 1Gbps offering, suddenly the 30Mbps ISP had 1Gbps and even at a cheaper price. They could sell it at a loss, because they were making a killing in other regions. They also created all kind of obstacles when Google tried to run a wire.

It is ridiculous and we really need a law to force competition.

DanAtC• 3 years ago

It doesn't. This is a dick measuring contest between billionaires.

mcpackieh3• 3 years ago

Why'd google fail? Google has a lot more resources than any billionaire.

7e• 3 years ago

It’s not clear that it does make economic sense. Amazon may be burning margin for growth, or placing bets on the future relative costs of satellite vs 5G and cable/fiber which may not pan out.

Dah00n3• 3 years ago

News like this always reminds me of how the Western world polluted the earth and then got snippy when the rest of the world started doing the same on scale. China, India, North Korea - everyone have equal rights to do this too but I don't think it will happen without a lot of western news articles, hand wringing by experts, talking heads talking, etc. and likely some politics too.

I wish we had laws that made sure a fix of future problems (ie. with debris, astronomy, etc.) had to be guaranteed before a launch was allowed. A bit of insight of how new technology often end up causing unintended problems later (or in the case of astronomy, sometimes right away).

sofixa2• 3 years ago

News like this always reminds me of how the Western world polluted the earth and then got snippy when the rest of the world started doing the same on scale

That's a simplification to the point of no sense.

The "West" (as someone who grew in "the East" with "the West" being the others, it's weird to me to talk about "the West" with regards to the EU, since my home country is an EU member) doesn't get "snippy" because someone else is doing what they used to do. It's because we have collectively, mostly, realised that those things that were done were terrible, and our morals of today condemn attempts at replicating it. If a Western company was dumping pollution in a river like they used to up until 1960s, you'd get outcry, of course. Germany gets rightfully criticised all the time about their stupid coal policy.

Of course there are the people who still have a colonial outlook (those savages polluting my vacation spots!), but that's not the prevailing attitude. It's our planet, of all of us, and it's understandable that developing countries want to develop further; they should be assisted so that development is as sustainable as possible, for their own sake, but also for humanity and the planet as a whole.

Dah00n3• 3 years ago

it's understandable that developing countries want to develop further; they should be assisted so that development is as sustainable as possible, for their own sake, but also for humanity and the planet as a whole.

I wholeheartedly agree, but more often than not these countries do not have the technology available or it costs more than older tech. Either they should be allowed to pollute with the old tech and "we" must pollute less to make it up or "we" must pay for/give the technology for free to countries that doesn't have access to it. We could even build it (with no strings attached of course).

Pointing fingers at -for example- China or India because of coal power plants while they are struggling to lift millions out of poverty is not helping anyone. In my opinion it is shut up or pay the bill. That includes North Korea, Iran, etc. and as long as we don't do this we have zero rights to criticise.

mcpackieh3• 3 years ago

News like this always reminds me of how the Western world polluted the earth and then got snippy when the rest of the world started doing the same on scale

This claim makes zero sense. Western environmental movements have predominantly focused on reform in western countries and stay relatively mum about others.

Dah00n3• 3 years ago

Those are not the only entities that comment on pollution. US, EU, news papers - there are lots of other commentators that point fingers.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 3 years ago

https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/10/amazon_project_kuiper...

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/space-debris-expert-...

Amazon is getting ready to launch a lot of broadband satellites

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