Amazon responds to SpaceX’s FCC complaint about its last Leo satellite launch

8:57 am

Amazon Leo logo

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.

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SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites

11:01 pm

The beat goes on: Even as everyone (including myself) was focused on NASA’s Artemis-2 lunar mission, SpaceX remained centered on its own space effort. This evening it placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first stage completed its 15th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic only 23 days after its previous flight.

Below is the leader board for the 2026 launch race, which I had forgotten to include in the previous two launches by SpaceX and NASA. Those posts have now been updated to include it.

41 SpaceX
16 China
5 Rocket Lab
4 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

Chinese pseudo-company Space Pioneer was also scheduled today to do the first demo launch of its Tianlong-3 orbital rocket, which appears in many ways to be a Falcon 9 copy. At this moment there are no reports out of China of what happened, though Jonathan McDowell reports on X of speculation that it was a failure. We will know more in a day or so.

Space Pioneer is the pseudo-company that in 2024 had this rocket’s first stage do an unplanned launch during a static fire engine test. That incident delayed this launch attempt by at least one year.

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Genesis cover

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 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

Orion fires engines and is now on its way around the Moon

4:55 pm

After reviewing the operation of Orion capsule during its first day in orbit, the NASA Artemis-2 management team approved sending the spacecraft to the Moon.

The burn occurred at 7:49 Eastern. The live stream of that burn is embedded below.

At this moment NASA and the crew are committed. No matter what happens, they cannot return to Earth any earlier than about nine days from now. And when they return, they will have to do a direct dive into the atmosphere, heading to splashdown. The Orion heat shield at that point must work.
» Read more

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Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

April 2, 2026 Quick space links

2:45 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

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Neptune’s rings, as seen by Voyager-2 in 1989

2:05 pm

The rings of Neptune as seen by Voyager-2
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced slightly, and sharpened to post here, was taken by Voyager-2 on August 26, 1989 shortly after it had completed its close fly-by of Neptune, looking back at the planet from a distance of about 175,000 miles.

The two main rings are clearly visible and appear complete over the region imaged. … Also visible in this image is the inner faint ring at about 25,000 miles from the center of Neptune, and the faint band which extends smoothly from the 33,000 miles ring to roughly halfway between the two bright rings. Both of these newly discovered rings are broad and much fainter than the two narrow rings.

These long exposure images were taken while the rings were back-lighted by the sun at a phase angle of 135 degrees. This viewing geometry enhances the visibility of dust and allows fainter, dusty parts of the ring to be seen. The bright glare in the center is due to over-exposure of the crescent of Neptune. The two gaps in the upper part of the outer ring in the image on the left are due to blemish removal in the computer processing. Numerous bright stars are evident in the background. Both bright rings have material throughout their entire orbit, and are therefore continuous.

While Voyager-2 took other pictures of these rings (here, here, here, here, and here), I think this picture shows the rings best, if not terrible well. Images using the Hubble and Webb space telescopes as well as others have not been better.

The rings were first confirmed to exist in the mid-1980s, shortly before Voyager-2’s fly-by. We now think there are five rings total, all made of dark material, likely a mix of carbon-based molecules, much of it the equivalent of dust and soot.

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Leaving Earth cover

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

America’s first foreign war on “the shores of Tripoli” has apparently never ended

1:14 pm

I have just finished two books that very nicely recount America’s first foreign war in the first decade of the 1800s, following its independence from Great Britain. The war was President Thomas Jefferson’s effort to stop the piracy of American ships by the three Islamic nations on the north coast of Africa — Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli (now in Libya) — then called the Barbary coast.

These Arab nations had for decades made it policy to hold all Mediterranean shipping hostage, demanding tribute from everyone or else they would attack ships, steal their goods, and either enslave their crew and passengers or hold them for ransom. The European nations paid, endlessly, rather than fight. The U.S. initially paid, but by 1800 and the election of Jefferson as president, it was tired of paying — especially because the payments were never enough to stop the raiding, nor were they enough to free those already captured and enslaved. When the ruler of Tripoli declared war against the U.S., Jefferson was glad to oblige.

The war that followed was the first in which American troops fought on foreign soil and planted the American flag in victory. It was also the first in which joint operations by American naval and land forces led to that victory. And finally, it was the first battle for the U.S. Marines, thus establishing firmly that branch of the military.

Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates

The Pirate Coast

The two books to the right tell this story most effectively, but in very different ways.

First there is The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the first Marines, and the secret mission of 1805 by Richard Zacks. Published in 2005, it is a very rich and well-researched work, while being remarkably readable because it tells the story from the point of view of the individuals involved. There is much triumph and tragedy in this story, and Zacks captures both.

Then we have Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates, written by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger and published ten years later in 2015. Unlike Zacks’ book, it does not delve as deeply into the lives of the many players, Instead, it is a fast-reading short but very thorough overview of this war.

Both books are worth reading, though The Pirate Coast is the better history. I strongly recommend you read both, however, beginning with the Kilmeade/Yaeger book.
» Read more

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The new Rubin telescope discovers over 11,000 new asteroids in first observations

11:07 am

Rubin's first asteroid discoveries
Click for full animation.

The new Rubin Observatory, a ground-based telescope in Chile, has discovered over 11,000 new asteroids in its first preliminary observations, with most in the main asteroid belt but a large number in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune and 33 previously unknown near-Earth asteroids.

The graphic to the right, annotated by me to post here, shows all of Rubin’s asteroid detections in light blue.

The submission to MPC [Minor Planet Center] comprises approximately one million observations, taken over the span of a month and a half, of over 11,000 new asteroids and more than 80,000 already known asteroids, including some that had previously been observed but were later “lost” because their orbits were too uncertain to predict their future locations. You can interact with all of Rubin’s asteroid discoveries in the Rubin Orbitviewer, which uses real data to provide an intuitive way to explore the structure of our cosmic backyard in three dimensions and in real time. Also, visit the Rubin Asteroid Discoveries Dashboard to learn about the new objects Rubin has uncovered.

…Among the newly identified objects are 33 previously unknown near-Earth objects (NEOs), which are small asteroids and comets whose closest approach to the Sun is less than 1.3 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. None of the newly discovered NEOs pose a threat to Earth, and the largest is about 500 meters wide.

Astronomers predict that Rubin will eventually find 90,000 new near-Earth objects, with some expected to pose a risk of hitting the Earth. It does this by repeatedly surveying the southern sky with its large mirror, then identifying new objects with its sophisticated software.

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Scientists: Saturn’s magnetic field is warped

9:41 am

Saturn's theorized magnetic field

Using six years of archival data from the Cassini Saturn orbiter, scientists now think Saturn’s magnetic field is lopsided, pulled sideways due to the planet’s very fast rotation as well as the material that surrounds the ringed planet.

The graphic to the right, Figure 4 from the research paper [pdf], compares the Earth’s symmetric magnetic field (top) with that of Saturn’s (bottom). From the press release:

The team found that the cusp was dragged to the right as viewed from the Sun, and was located most often between 1:00 and 3:00 (as it might appear on a clockface), compared to 12:00 as it would be on Earth.

The researchers said this was likely because of Saturn’s extremely fast rotation (a Saturn day is 10.7 hours) and the heavy “soup” of plasma (ionised gas) it pulls around it, a product of gases emitted by Saturn’s moons, especially Enceladus. Together, these are thought to drag the magnetic field lines to the right. But more simulations are needed to confirm this interpretation.

When the solar wind hits the Earth’s magnetic field lines at the cusp, that wind is funneled down along those lines to the poles, where it produces the aurora. This new analysis at Saturn will help scientists better understand the behavior of Saturn’s aurora, which is made even more complex by the planet’s many moons.

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SpaceX: Amazon’s last Leo launch violated its license, forcing 30 Starlink satellites to maneuver to avoid collision

9:14 am

Amazon Leo logo

SpaceX yesterday filed a letter of complaint against Amazon with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), stating that on Amazon’s last launch on February 12, 2026 it violated its license, placing its 32 satellites in a higher orbit than the 400-kilometer orbit the FCC approved, forcing 30 Starlink satellites to maneuver to avoid collision.

Worse, Amazon did not inform anyone of this change. From SpaceX’s letter:

Despite its repeated representations and related license conditions, Amazon launched eight times into orbits with insertion altitudes above 450 km without submitting any amended orbital debris mitigation plan or seeking Commission approval for such a change. Most recently, even with input from SpaceX, Amazon’s February 12, 2026, launch on Ariane 6 inserted its satellites at an altitude sufficiently high that it led to unmitigable collision risks with dozens of operational spacecraft.

To be clear, Amazon did not update its orbital debris mitigation plan. But more importantly, Amazon did not provide sufficiently accurate ephemerides to facilitate postdeployment deconfliction for that launch, which significantly increased the risks to all satellite operations near the 480 km insertion altitude as well as to inhabited spacecraft. Amazon’s lack of deconfliction forced Starlink satellites alone to perform 30 collision avoidance maneuvers within hours immediately following the Ariane launch to avoid the newly deployed satellites. Even in the presence of these maneuvers, the risk from this insertion is estimated to considerably exceed the Commission’s semi-annual reporting threshold of 1 × 10⁻⁵ for unmitigated conjunctions.

Amazon is already at risk of violating its FCC license in other ways. The license requires it to get half its 3,232 satellite constellation in orbit by July. It will not meet that requirement, and has already submitted a request for a waiver.

The violation that SpaceX cites in its letter is in many ways much more egregious. The whole point of the FCC’s licensing process is to coordinate the use of spectrum and orbital operations. The commission will not take kindly such a blatant disdain by Amazon of the FCC’s legal responsibilities. The FCC’s chairman, Brendan Carr, has already blasted Amazon in public for its slow satellite deployment, even as it repeatedly files what appear to be frivolous papers trying to block SpaceX.

Hat tip to reader Richard M.

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SpaceX files initial paperwork for going public

8:54 am

SpaceX logo

SpaceX yesterday filed the first confidential paperwork the the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its initial public offering (IPO) of public stock, now targeting a June-July time frame.

The filing was reported by Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The SEC said it had no comment on the matter. The filing will lead to a sale of shares by June or July, according to the published reports. Confidential filings are used by companies to share information with the SEC and investors before they have to disclose to the broader public.

How much SpaceX plans to raise through a sale of some of its shares are not yet available due to the confidential nature. But CEO and principal shareholder Elon Musk is expected to control a majority of voting shares once the details are revealed. And it could make Musk, already the world’s richest person, that much richer.

SpaceX was valued at $800 billion and xAI $230 billion at their most recent funding round in January according to PitchBook, a research firm that tracks the valuation of private companies. That puts the combined companies’ worth at more than $1 trillion.

SpaceX also now includes X (formerly Twitter) that Musk bought for $44 billion, so the combined company is actually even larger. We still do not know any details, such as the number of shares to be sold as well as the initial sale price. One rumor has indicated that SpaceX wants to reserve 30% for sale to individuals, a number much higher than usual. Other rumors say that Musk is designing the sale to make sure he remains the majority stock-holder and thus in control of all three companies.

Stock experts have predicted this stock sale could garner SpaceX as much as $75 billion in cash, which would give it the resources to not only build its proposed million-satellite data center constellation in orbit but also develop the Starship/Superheavy infrastructure to build its own data center on the Moon. And along the way SpaceX would have the funds to do its own space program to settle Mars.

If SpaceX does raise that much, it will truly become America’s space program, doing far more that NASA and much faster — financed voluntarily by the American people.

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