Amazon responds to SpaceX’s FCC complaint about its last Leo satellite launch
Amazon yesterday submitted a letter [pdf] to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) responding to SpaceX’s FCC complaint earlier this week that accused it of using Arianespace’s Ariane-6 rocket to place 32 Leo satellites in a 450 kilometer orbit — 50 kilometers more than its license allowed — causing SpaceX to maneuver 30 of its own Starlink satellites to avoid any collisions.
In its response, Amazon claimed the higher orbit was not a violation, that its original license allowed for orbits “at or above 400 kilometers”, and that the problem was really caused by SpaceX’s decision in the past few months to lower the orbits of its Starlink satellites to a 462 to 485 kilometers. It also accused SpaceX of refusing to compromise when Amazon proposed a solution. Instead, SpaceX demanded Amazon stop launching at this orbit height, a change that Amazon claimed would delay the next few Ariane-6 launches by months.
Despite these claims, Amazon then backed off:
Even so, Amazon Leo has made significant operational changes in response to SpaceX’s concerns. Working with Arianespace, Amazon Leo has committed to lowering its target insertion altitude, beginning with its fourth Ariane mission. Similarly, Amazon Leo is working with its other launch providers to determine if they can lower insertion altitudes without impacting Amazon Leo’s schedule.
In other words, Amazon will do as SpaceX requests, but only do so after it completes three more Ariane-6 launches at this higher orbit.
The FCC now has a choice. If it demands Amazon immediately concede SpaceX’s point, this will likely cause a delay in three Ariane-6 launches of approximately 100 Leo satellites. Amazon’s FCC license requires it to launch 1,616 Leo satellites by July 2026, and at present it only has a little more than 200 satellites in orbit. Because Amazon doesn’t expect to meet this goal, it has already asked the FCC for a time extension.
Thus, it appears this dispute with SpaceX might actually benefit Amazon. If the FCC denies Amazon’s request to launch the next three Ariane-6 missions at this higher orbit, it will also be agreeing to a delay in Leo satellite launches. It will thus be forced to grant Amazon’s request for that time extension. And even if it does allow Amazon to launch at the higher orbit, requiring the two companies to work out any orbital conflicts, that permission will confirm the FCC is going to grant Amazon’s time extension request as well.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Amazon yesterday submitted a letter [pdf] to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) responding to SpaceX’s FCC complaint earlier this week that accused it of using Arianespace’s Ariane-6 rocket to place 32 Leo satellites in a 450 kilometer orbit — 50 kilometers more than its license allowed — causing SpaceX to maneuver 30 of its own Starlink satellites to avoid any collisions.
In its response, Amazon claimed the higher orbit was not a violation, that its original license allowed for orbits “at or above 400 kilometers”, and that the problem was really caused by SpaceX’s decision in the past few months to lower the orbits of its Starlink satellites to a 462 to 485 kilometers. It also accused SpaceX of refusing to compromise when Amazon proposed a solution. Instead, SpaceX demanded Amazon stop launching at this orbit height, a change that Amazon claimed would delay the next few Ariane-6 launches by months.
Despite these claims, Amazon then backed off:
Even so, Amazon Leo has made significant operational changes in response to SpaceX’s concerns. Working with Arianespace, Amazon Leo has committed to lowering its target insertion altitude, beginning with its fourth Ariane mission. Similarly, Amazon Leo is working with its other launch providers to determine if they can lower insertion altitudes without impacting Amazon Leo’s schedule.
In other words, Amazon will do as SpaceX requests, but only do so after it completes three more Ariane-6 launches at this higher orbit.
The FCC now has a choice. If it demands Amazon immediately concede SpaceX’s point, this will likely cause a delay in three Ariane-6 launches of approximately 100 Leo satellites. Amazon’s FCC license requires it to launch 1,616 Leo satellites by July 2026, and at present it only has a little more than 200 satellites in orbit. Because Amazon doesn’t expect to meet this goal, it has already asked the FCC for a time extension.
Thus, it appears this dispute with SpaceX might actually benefit Amazon. If the FCC denies Amazon’s request to launch the next three Ariane-6 missions at this higher orbit, it will also be agreeing to a delay in Leo satellite launches. It will thus be forced to grant Amazon’s request for that time extension. And even if it does allow Amazon to launch at the higher orbit, requiring the two companies to work out any orbital conflicts, that permission will confirm the FCC is going to grant Amazon’s time extension request as well.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
So Amazon is basically saying “yes, we did exactly what SpaceX is screaming about, they did in fact have to deal with all the deconfliction themselves, it was nearly a disaster, but we didn’t do anything wrong.”
If you read the Ars Technica article on this subject, they also have those same facts. But the spin, oh my God the spin, is so over the top anti-SpaceX that it’s hard to believe. Full of sneering “SpaceX claims” and “according to SpaceX”, followed by admissions from the FCC and Amazon three paragraphs later that, yes, the “SpaceX claims” are entirely true.
If it’s true that it takes most launch providers multiple months to deal with something simple as changing the target orbit from 480 to 400km, that’s just an amazing piece of information. I can understand that it’s not just change one value in the program and launch, but a competent provider would have the procedures in place to deal with it days at most. I bet SpaceX does.
David Eastman,
With the exception of its regular space writers, Eric Berger and Stephen Clark, Ars Technica is a sewer of woke progressivism, Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) and Musk Derangement Syndrome (MDS). Anything written about Musk or any of his companies by any of their other writers will be a bubbling cauldron of bile and lies-by-omission. Pay these no mind.
As to SpaceX having procedures in place to quickly revise scheduled launches, it certainly does. I’ve seen many SpaceX launches delayed repeatedly by anywhere from a few minutes to several hours several times on a given day and still launch at the last established T-0. It takes SpaceX minutes at most to revise a launch. That it apparently takes Arianespace weeks or months doesn’t speak very well of their technical capability, especially in the area of launch control software. This would have been insanely slow even back in my college days when we submitted computing jobs on decks of 80-column Hollerith cards for batch processing.
Brodkin in particular has a noteworthy track record of prejudice against anything involving Elon Musk or SpaceX. This article is par for the course.
David Eastman wrote: “I can understand that it’s not just change one value in the program and launch, but a competent provider would have the procedures in place to deal with it days at most. I bet SpaceX does.”
From Amazon LEO’s response letter:
Amazon LEO (then known as Kuiper) bought three Falcon 9 launches, which occurred only a few months after the purchase. SpaceX can plan an entire launch in a matter of months — not a year — including scheduling a launcher and finding a place within its busy launch schedule.
The Air Force has asked launch companies to be able to schedule an entire launch within a matter of days, and then to schedule another launch within a few days later. If doing the work for the whole launch (planning, complex final mission analysis , setup, execution) only takes days, then a small change in the launch profile — the destination altitude — cannot take so very long.
For Amazon to be giving such a low expectation of Arianespace’s capabilities should anger Arianespace. And it should anger its sister company, Blue Origin, because we can only surmise that Blue isn’t any better than LEO’s excuses. Thank God that the Air Force relies upon competent American launch companies for its launch services.
“…that permission will confirm the FCC is going to grant Amazon’s time extension request as well”
..and that, I suspect, was the sole reason for Amazon doing this. The brazenness almost beggars belief.
A Blessed Easter to everyone.
I just saw this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C5-gWTWPh44&pp=ugUEEgJlbg%3D%3D
I’d love to believe that…
At Amazons current launch rate how long will it take them to place all Sats in orbit?