Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites in bid to take on Starlink
64 comments
·April 28, 2025breadwinner
godelski
While I agree, I also think we have to contend that this is a bigger issue than Musk and Bezos. Fundamentally, this is a global issue. There's only so much space and the laws of physics can be unkind.
Given that, I'd argue that critical infrastructure like this is concerning in the hands of any individual entity.
It would be concerning even if exclusively controlled by Mr Rodgers[0]. There's an opportunity here to build a global coalition and mutual partnership like never before. All parties benefit by sharing. And all parties MUST settle for inferior infrastructure by not working together. There's no way around this... the laws of physics are just a constraint that can't be overcome...
My main comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43827615
ty6853
It's hilarious hearing family/friends who I have invited to remote areas shit-talk Starlink while using it, because we have no great other choice. Personally I will buy internet from Satan himself if it works and for the right price.
pseudocomposer
Are you saying this includes the price of not being allowed to criticize the CEO?
ty6853
This got me wondering who the CEO of Starlink is. I could not find it anywhere.
I know who the CEO of the 100% owner of Starlink is, but not Starlink itself. Do they even have one?
IIRC most states when filing an LLC for private equity require a president but not a CEO.
tw04
The problem is there’s no indication Bezos will be any better. He was more than happy to bend the knee to Trump.
What we really need is the European Union to fund a global competitor.
null
rozal
Why is Bezos preferable to Elon?
aaron695
[dead]
AStonesThrow
[flagged]
breadwinner
Fortunately FOX News is not the only news source. We don't want Starlink to be the only satellite internet serving rural areas. Is that hard to understand?
Freedom2
No, but I'm fairly sure FOX News and the NY Yankees don't advocate themselves as free speech absolutionists. So I'm not sure what your comparison is trying to do here.
threeseed
We have an alternative for 99% of the world and it’s fibre.
Which brings everyone the same speeds instead of perpetuating a digital divide between cities and rural areas. Which may not be bad now but once we start moving to ten and hundred gigabit plans, solutions like Starlink are going to resemble dialup.
robalpha
This makes zero sense. Fibre is not going to be economically viable in rural areas at all. If that's the only option, they won't have any internet at all. I also don't think we'll be moving to >10g plans anytime soon. Only a small portion of users have even close to 1g, and everyone else seems fine with it.
lowmagnet
Weird, I'm sitting here in a rural area and I have 1g fiber. You may have forgotten that cooperatives exist. It's a common error, since they mainly exist in exurb and rural areas.
The cool thing is that since they often own the power right of way, they can run fiber on it without any change.
The way coops work is that we're the owners, we vote for initiatives, etc. The local power company is now our region's #1 internet provider, hands down.
AngryData
Meanwhile, me living in a rural area, didn't have internet besides 56k until 4g LTE existed, got co-op fiber direct to my home now for less than my wireless plan, and it is so successful they have expanded to everywhere around here and continuously growing.
If an area could be wired with phones in the past, it can be wired for fiber now even cheaper and nearly all of rural areas were wired with electrical and phone lines before. Fiber is cheaper and lighter than copper lines, bucket trucks have never been more common, and there are very few existing utilities to contend with. This fiber is WAY cheaper than any satellite internet, works even when the weather is shitty, and doesn't require investments into proprietary gear.
ty6853
A lot of rural areas have small-scale wireless ISPs at 10-100mbps. You just have to install a directional antenna on your roof.
This doesn't work once you get really remote, nor does fiber.
In any case none of them beat the experience of pulling an antenna out of a box and it pretty much just working.
vel0city
Somehow we managed to bring telephone and electricity to rural areas but golly a fiber line is just too hard.
threeseed
a) Hospitals and roads are not economically viable either. We do it because it serves the national good and by making people more productive it improves the economy as a whole.
b) In Australia they are trialing 100g over the existing fibre network.
c) Everyone was fine with dialup at one point as well.
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theLegionWithin
more competition is always a good thing - but Amazon isn't some bastion of openness & free thought... internet though Amazon will likely be a very closed ecosystem.
wonder if the EU will try to create their own constellation...
thot_experiment
SpaceX launched something like three or four times the mass to orbit last year as every other entity in the world, government and private combined. Kuiper is a LARP and will remain one for many years even with optimistic forecasts. China might have a workable constellation in a few years but we are likely at least 5 years away from a meaningful competitor to Starlink. Obviously having a non-elon option would be great but I am extremely doubtful anyone will be able to pull it off anytime soon.
deedubaya
Why are these going up on ULA rockets and not Blue Origin?
boznz
New Glen is their orbital rocket but it is not ready yet. Hopefully it will be ready for some of the launches, but it must hurt owning a rocket company and having to use another companies to launch your satellites.
From the project web page
"Project Kuiper has secured 80 launches from Arianespace, Blue Origin, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance, and we have options for additional launches with Blue Origin, providing enough capacity to deploy the majority of our satellite constellation. The agreements comprise the largest commercial procurement of launch capacity in history, and support thousands of suppliers and highly skilled jobs across the U.S. and Europe."
godelski
It's worth mentioning too that BO is following the same strategy as SpaceX (and others), in becoming their own customers. Lesson learned from the 90's launch vehicle boom. Companies couldn't scale without customers, it's a vicious feedback loop. No customers because prices are too high, can't bring prices down without more customers. Either you have to become your own customer or you have to bootstrap. It's a long way to bootstrap and an expensive industry.
Though using ULA is kinda a bridge to the looking deadline[0]. So if they can't get satellites up now they won't have this means for being their own customer in the future.
[0] https://news.satnews.com/2025/03/19/project-kuiper-facing-re...
lupusreal
They need to launch fast with as many launchers as they can, due to their looming FCC deadline. The more they launch, the better their odds for getting an extension to their deadline as more launches demonstrates their seriousness.
They're even going to launch on Falcon 9 (albeit after a shareholder lawsuit..)
HideousKojima
Did shareholders not want them launching on a Falcon 9 because it was helping a competitor, or did they actively want them to use the F9 because it's the most affordable option but Bezos (or other higher ups) didn't want to support a competitor?
timewizard
New Shepard has limited payload delivery capacity. It's mostly for crew and experiments held in lockers in the crew compartment.
New Glenn has a 100,000lb to LEO payload capacity which makes it absurdly oversized for this mission.
Atlas V has a 18,000 to 42,000lb to LEO payload capacity. The variable solid rocket booster configuration really gives this platform the most flexibility for customer needs.
idontwantthis
New shepard has zero payload delivery capacity. It's suborbital.
timewizard
As it's currently configured and unstaged. That does not mean the vehicle is completely incapable of delivering payloads to LEO.
WalterSobchak
That's a really interesting name. How would you pronounce it?
wenc
Before I learned Dutch pronunciation, I always thought it was "coo-ee-per". But the other comment is correct -- it's approximately "kyper".
Now try Huygens.
AStonesThrow
The Kuiper Belt is a big mess of space debris in the outer Solar System. It's where many comets and asteroids may originate before we spot them coming towards the Sun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt
It's a rather apropros name for a project which likewise plans to pollute Earth orbit with a bunch of space junk in order to compete with other junk providers. Hopefully their junk does not often touch.
In related news, I also learned recently that the Oort Cloud may not exist at all. I've often seen objects referred to as "originating in the Oort Cloud" but Oort himself had simply developed a hypothesis, and the "Cloud" has not progressed beyond "hypothesis" status since that time. It's amazing how imaginary structures enter our consciousness as if they are real, if enough scientists talk about it that way!
jpm_sd
eminence32
> /ˈkaɪpər/
Wikipedia has long included IPA pronunciation info for pages about people and other things, which is hyperlinked to a handy guide. But I recently discovered something useful and not entirely obvious:
If you over your mouse over each letter in the IPA pronunciation, you'll get a tooltip describing the sound of that specific letter.
godelski
While I think we need alternatives to Starlink and competition in the space[0], I think we need to recognize that there are physical limitations. Consequently there is a natural monopoly here, and if we have too many providers we will block out the sky[1] and risk creating the Kessler Syndrome[2]. While these satellites are being target at LEO and will naturally decay, lessening the harm if a Kessler effect arises, I think it is worth noting.
Interestingly, we had a strikingly similar event happen not too long ago: telecom.
When it was all wired, we had a choice: to allow wide competition and let the wires block out the skies[3], or share. The same problem happened again when it came to the airwaves. And again when it came to satellite communications. Here we are, at the natural continuation of this.
The physics of these things means that there are natural limitations that can't be avoided and can create advantages that can't be superseded, harming competition[4]. The physics means that there are better frequencies than others to use. The physics means that there are better orbits than others. Certainly first mover should be rewarded, but certainly the first mover cannot have undo power to squash any competition. That does not benefit anyone[5].
So now with a second player is this space[!0], we need to take the notion more seriously. Opinions of Musk aside[6], we're at a point where action need be taken. If the ball doesn't get rolling on this then everyone is worse off.[7]
I want to stress that this is a global issue. Even if the US solves the problem for US companies (in whatever manner that is), this doesn't change the fact that those laws of physics still apply and other countries exist. What about companies in China? India? Europe? Or other countries/regions? This was less of a problem for other communications but at this point the importance of a global solution becomes necessary. There is not enough space[0] for even a few countries to throw up their own mega constellations. They will start interfering with one another....
The truth of the matter is a coalition provides a better tool for everyone. But no coalition means the service is worse for every player. It is a literal Tragedy of the Commons[8] situation.
[0] pun unintended
[1] Mostly to Earth based astronomy. But there are other consequences and visible light isn't the only portion of the EM spectrum that is blocked. Plus... there's the physical layer!
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
[3] https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/58872/did-they-r...
[4] If government has a role in the economy I think even those that are fairly libertarian agree that it should ensure competition is able to occur (even if that the means is through stepping back).
[5] Even in the long run it does not benefit the company in power. Only in the short term is there an advantage.
[6] Disclosure: I am very much not a fan. (Please don't get me started... I'd like to stay on this topic. At least for a bit. The other parts are also important but I'm hoping we can have a serious talk about this one thing. If nothing more than to solve a mutual problem)
[7] Even if you are a fan of Musk I think it is likely that we can agree that Musk's involvement in this decision making process should exclusively come from the perspective of SpaceX and not through his influence in the government. A functioning and competitive market needs a neutral third party decision maker, or at be a mediator. Even the perception of undo influence is detrimental to the process. It'll be difficult (potentially impossible) to decouple given current conditions.
HideousKojima
>Consequently there is a natural monopoly here, and if we have too many providers we will block out the sky[1] and risk creating the Kessler Syndrome[2].
The orbits Starlink sats are at won't cause Kessler syndrome. Even if the entire constellation exploded right this instant, all the debris would deorbit within about 5 years
godelski
You are incorrect. Orbits can't cause a Kessler Syndrome. Kessler Syndrome can occur at any altitude. But you are correct that the orbit places a bound for how long the Kessler Event can take place.
A bound in time is different from not possible. Do not confuse the two.
There's also 2 critical points:
1) The lower the altitude, the easier it is to create. You need less debris to fill the orbit.
2) Even a 3 years "lockout" period would have significant consequences on our world due to our reliance on space.
Also, remember that when objects collide that this can send parts into higher orbits, which will take longer to deorbit. Even just through collisions, while the total energy of the system may be lower than the input this does not require each object to have the same or less energy prior to collision. Then we also have to consider that some craft have propellants. Considering that Starlink satellites have collision avoidance systems on them, it is quite safe to assume they have propellants. This similarly can result in more objects ending up in higher orbits.
Remember, just because it sounds right doesn't mean it is. There are non-negligible factors at play here and overly simplistic models will lead you to the wrong conclusion.
(Source: I have a degree in physics and formerly worked in the space industry. My job consisted of modeling a lot of things, including radiation transport, orbital dynamics, and acoustic engine stability. I'm not stating this to flex, I'm stating this to claim I'm not just some rando who read a few wiki pages)
wnevets
[flagged]
lupusreal
Tired of these ignorant gripes from people who think they know better than the entire space industry because they ingested some popsci trash on reddit or youtube. If you actually knew anything you would know that LEO constellations are far less risky than the old school method of putting communication satellites in high orbits like GEO (where any accident means orbital debris which will effectively never decay.)
wkat4242
The guy who thought of the Kessler syndrome was a respected scientist in the space community and he was specifically speaking of LEO. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
I think there's worse effects though. Like the impact on astronomy.. SpaceX has done a few things to minimise the effect but there is still an effect.
The Kessler syndrome is a hypothetical phenomenon that could possibly occur under the wrong circumstances. But inference with astronomy is happening now.
omneity
For the uninitiated, what this comment means is that LEO-orbiting payloads have a naturally limited lifespan as the orbit decays over time on its own causing the LEO satellites to get closer to earth and burn down to smithereens due to friction with the atmosphere.
This is why Starlink keeps launching new satellites on the regular. I believe theirs have a six years lifespan but don’t quote me on that.
firesteelrain
It also provides a bunch of real life experience for the company in launching rockets rather than being this rare occurrence they can iterate faster and fix problems as they go. Due to this, Falcon9 matured very quickly in my opinion
wnevets
[flagged]
The world needs an alternative to Starlink yesterday.
If you criticize Musk on X, the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” will reduce distribution of your posts [1].
We don't want someone like that owning critical internet infrastructure.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/23/business/elon...