8 comments

• Richard M

  April 30, 2026 at 9:55 am

  One of the NSF guys on X this morning was marveling at the fact that with this Ariane 6 launch, Amazon has actually put more satellites in orbit over the past 7 days than Starlink had. I double checked it, and sure enough, he was right, at least as of that moment.

  Obviously 7 days is an arbitrary and very short cutoff, and the numbers look vastly different if you look at the last 6 months (or any other time frame). But I suppose there is no denying that Amazon has been able ratchet up the tempo of deployment of late, and that may well be the kind of evidence of earnest intention that will get them an extension from the FCC. There might be strings attached, however.
• Dick Eagleson

  April 30, 2026 at 10:22 am

  Based on 40 launches through the end of March, SpaceX was, at that point, launching at an annualized rate of 160/yr. Having done 12 launches in April for a YTD total of 52, SpaceX has now regressed a bit to an annualized rate of 156/yr.

  SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said a few weeks ago that the company may only do 140 – 145 Falcon launches this year. That number is probably based on an expectation of success for Starship Flight 12 and a rapid cadence of Starship tests flights thereafter shading into a few early operational Starship missions, most likely for Starlink V3 deployment. The reduction in annual Falcon launches would come entirely out of the F9 Starlink launch subtotal.

  But there are some uncertainties beyond what happens with Starship. SpaceX is supposed to do several launches of satellites for the Telesat Lightspeed LEO broadband Internet constellation later this year. But Telesat is in quite precarious financial condition according to its latest audit, and might find itself unable to proceed with these launches.

  Should that happen, SpaceX could simply reduce its 2026 launch total accordingly, lay on some additional Starlink V2 Mini+ missions in place of cancelled Telesat missions or find some other customer for those launch opportunities. The most likely such customer would be Amazon for its own LEO broadband Internet constellation. SpaceX is already lined up to do 10 such launches this year, but could do more if Telesat defaults.

  The Ariane 64 launch early this morning may provide a clue as to why Amazon could find itself wanting even more launches for its constellation from SpaceX. It was repeatedly stated during that launch’s webcast that this was only the second of 18 launches Amazon has contracted for with Arianespace. This just-completed 2nd launch comes about 2-1/2 months after the first. The remaining 16 launches will constitute the majority of the Ariane 6 manifest over at least the next two years as the company said it expects to be able to do only two or three more launches this year, perhaps 6 -8 in 2027 and perhaps 8 – 10 in 2028. Under those circumstances – and with Vulcan and New Glenn both stood down – one can easily see Amazon coming back to SpaceX for a third tranche of Falcon 9 launches – perhaps even more than the 10 launches of the 2nd tranche.

  Here, I guess, is where I offer the obligatory hat-tip to the late great Yogi Berra and his observation that it’s really difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.
• mkent

  April 30, 2026 at 3:50 pm

  ”With this launch, Amazon now has 302 Leo satellites in orbit, out of the 1,616 it needs to launch by July to meet its FCC license requirement.”

  This launch is an important milestone. Amazon needs 578 satellites in orbit to begin initial service with Leo. With this launch Amazon passes the halfway point to that need. Should the FCC do its worst and deny Amazon an extension, Amazon will still be able to begin service.

  ”…one can easily see Amazon coming back to SpaceX…”

  That’s all that matters to you, isn’t it? Not the service that Amazon provides its customers, not the advances in satellite and user terminal capability, not the business it provides to satellite, component, or launch vehicle providers, not the growth of the space economy into more and more facets of everyday life. Just what it does for SpaceX and only SpaceX. There’s a word for that…
• Blair Ivey

  May 1, 2026 at 1:00 am

  ” . . . Morocco has become the 64th nation to sign the Artemis Accords.”

  Took’em long enough. Morocco was the first nation to recognize the United States as an independent country in December of 1777.
• Dick Eagleson

  May 1, 2026 at 12:42 pm

  mkent,

  I’m actually interested in quite a bit beyond SpaceX but I will confess to being generally underwhelmed by Washington-state-based space doings – the SpaceX Starlink works and Stoke Space notably excepted. I gather that is what actually irks you about me – pretty much the same thing that irks a certain other frequent commenter here when I fail to pay what he regards as due respect to the space doings based in Alabama.

  So lets go down your checklist of gripes.

  I am accused of lacking proper regard “for the service Amazon provides its customers.”

  I certainly have considerable regard for Amazon’s retail and delivery operations. Our domicile is one of millions that take considerable advantage of those. I also watch a bit of Prime’s streaming offerings, especially Reacher.

  If you were referring to broadband Internet customers, however, Amazon was providing no such service to anyone until its recent purchase of Orbcomm as it entirely lacked the means. Its LEO constellation is well short of minimum viable status due to a number of poor decisions by its management. The most consequential of these was indulging Jeff Bezos’s schoolyard-class feud with Elon Musk and not contracting with SpaceX for even contingency launch services until forced to by a shareholder lawsuit and, since, by utter necessity based on the substantial default of its other intended launch providers. This was, to say the least, not exactly a state of affairs unanticipated by many, myself included, but hardly outstanding in that respect.

  So we have a broadband Internet constellation that is far behind schedule and still, for practical purposes, imaginary to potential customers and which owes this status to an unwise decision to contract for launch services with several firms which have now proven to be both late and unreliable with such services.

  But I am a bad guy for having noticed all of this.

  Next, I am gigged for failing to appreciate the alleged “advances in satellite and user terminal capability” of Amazon LEO. Perhaps you would care to explain what those are supposed to be. The satellites, in particular, strike me as being notably inferior to their Starlink counterparts in terms of parasitic mass required per launch stack. Amazon Leo birds require sizable and fairly massy mounting fixtures instead of being stackable for launch as are Starlink birds. The hit to usable payload fairing volume of these fixtures is even worse than their penalty anent mass.

  The user terminals are flat phased-array antennae. So are those for Starlink. What is the supposed big “advance” here?

  Next is my lack of what you regard as proper respect for “the business it provides to satellite, component, or launch vehicle providers.” No doubt all of that is real – though the amount of business provided to launch vehicle providers has been limited, until quite recently, to just ULA’s left-over Atlas Vs and a few Falcon 9s. Arianespace has now joined that club but not yet at a very impressive scale. Amazon Leo’s other notional launch vehicle providers have vehicles that are now stood down for analysis of recent failures – no business there.

  Finally, there is my alleged dismissal of “the growth of the space economy into more and more facets of everyday life.” I certainly do not dismiss that, I simply note that none of it is due to anything Amazon or Blue Origin have done. For what it’s worth I have no confidence that either company is likely to make more than marginal contributions of these sorts compared to SpaceX. Amazon LEO, even when fully built-out, will be a minor player in satellite Internet compared to Starlink.

  You are, of course, free to attempt proving me wrong about any of this. Personally, I’d advise you to save your efforts for something more worthy of the expenditure and more likely of success.
• Edward

  May 1, 2026 at 5:19 pm

  Robert wrote: “With this launch, Amazon now has 302 Leo satellites in orbit, out of the 1,616 it needs to launch by July to meet its FCC license requirement. The company’s request for a time extension is presently pending at the FCC.”

  I hope that the FCC approves the extension. The intention of this policy is to make sure that companies do not get a license then sit on the frequency without immediate intention to use it. It was originally instituted during the heyday of the geostationary communication satellite. Amazon’s Leo (née Kuiper) is clearly intending to use this frequency allocation soon and is not sitting on it. For the FCC to deny an extension would put a damper on future space operators.
  ____________
  Dick Eagleson wrote: “… I offer the obligatory hat-tip to the late great Yogi Berra and his observation that it’s really difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.”

  Yeah. I have incorrectly predicted the past on a few occasions. (Please note: I am never wrong, just incorrect.*)
  ____________
  mkent,
  The comment from Dick Eagleson that you mock was not only obvious but has been made several times over the past year or so, ever since it was known that Amazon had spurned Falcon launches in favor of rockets that were not even launching yet. The decision to try to meet a deadline for over 1600 satellites into orbit on rockets that were yet to be operational was ill advised, to put it kindly, or stupid, to put it accurately. So now Amazon must beg for forgiveness for its poor planning of its constellation and hope that it gets a pass for violating long-standing, well-known rules.

  You are capable of better comments. Please stick to them. They make for much better reading.
  ____________
  (* 1. How does one correctly do a footnote from within a parenthetical remark?

  ( 2. I believe that if I can put enough conditionals on any statement, then I can always be right. I am, in fact, right about this, because I really do believe it.).
• Blair Ivey

  May 2, 2026 at 12:57 am

  Edward noted: “So now Amazon must beg for forgiveness for its poor planning of its constellation and hope that it gets a pass for violating long-standing, well-known rules.”

  I have a coffee cup: “Lack of Planning on Your Part, Does Not Mean an Emergency, On My Part” It’s in the rotation.
• Edward

  May 2, 2026 at 10:15 am

  Blair Ivey,
  Nice coffee cup, and one I wish I had a couple of times for bosses and coworkers.

  My understanding is that Amazon submitted the paperwork in plenty of time to keep this from being an emergency. At least they have managed to plan ahead well enough to avoid the emergency consideration.

  However, it is an unusual violation. I don’t know of another constellation operator that was in this position. There have been individual geostationary satellite operators that had the problem of not getting their satellite launched in time or had their satellite fail (on launch or before becoming operational). To me, being partially in place is a new one.

  I hope that they get their extension, even if they cannot get the 500 or so that they need to start service before the July deadline, because they are clearly earnest in their efforts to use the bandwidth for its intended purpose. Also, we need some more competition in this area.

  Would competition cause Starlink to reduce its prices and thus slow down the funding for Starship development and delay its initial operations? Probably, but those are the risks that a company takes. Staying on track despite the distractions is why management gets the big space-bucks.

  Ha! We need a new coffee cup: “Competition on Your Part Can Mean an Emergency On My Part.”