
Amazon’s Project Kuiper is more than the company’s response to SpaceX - misotaur
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/satellites/amazons-project-kuiper-is-more-than-the-companys-response-to-spacex
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caiobegotti
"If Kuiper succeeds [...]"

That's the biggest if clause you will ever see about this because in order for
it to succeed at all BO needs to actually launch something to orbit at least
once before we talk about success of a commercial product on top of their
rockets.

I follow up SpaceX quite closely, I admit, but any news about products that
absolutely depend on the launch capability of BO is vaporware at most and most
probably a PR stunt so they look relevant. They need to deliver something,
anything, it's that simple.

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jncraton
I don't fully understand the negativity around BO. They haven't gone to orbit
yet, and they don't run everything they do as a PR campaign the way that
SpaceX does, but getting a rocket to orbit isn't that big of a deal these
days.

We first achieved orbital flight over 50 years ago, and many different groups
have achieved the same since then. Given Bezos' deep pockets, why would BO
fail where so many other have succeeded in launching payloads to orbit?

They appear to be making steady progress, both on reusability and on their
BE-4 engine. There doesn't appear to be any real insurmountable obstacles
between where they are today and orbital flight.

I'm not saying they will absolutely succeed, but their success feels more like
a _when_ than an _if_ unless Bezos decides to pull the plug for some reason.
Whether they can do this by 2026 is of course a different matter.

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nscalf
The default state of space is failure. It's incredibly expensive, extremely
error prone, and failure can have catastrophic results. There's a reason
SpaceX was laughed out of room for years. Hell, the most basic problem is
described as tyranny.

Regardless of how rich Bezos is, can he bring the right type of talent
together and get that talent to make no errors? How many hundreds of millions
to billions of dollars is he willing to throw away with nothing to show for
it? It's not just can it be done, it's can it be done in this competitive
environment before SpaceX pulls so far ahead that there isn't any reason to
compete? Add onto it that most of the top talent wants to be, and is, at
SpaceX.

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DennisP
Also I think BO is doing things the hard way. SpaceX started with small
expendable rockets carrying cargo. That kept the stakes reasonably low, and
let them rapidly iterate and learn from experience. BO's first orbital rocket
is supposed to be a heavy-lift reusable.

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chmullig
I feel like this massively overstates the advantages of an AWS to satellite
link. They aren’t going to put tiny regions in space, so it’s just about data
transit. Nobody would suggest AWS should start a cell phone company or fiber
ISP just for bundling that with AWS. IP, possibly with a VPN, is a very solved
issue for AWS access. It’s how 100% of their customers use AWS now, after all.

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kemiller
LEO satellites have potential for very low latency over large distances which
could be very valuable for multi-zone customers and Amazon itself. Lasers in a
vacuum.

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pavon
But also low bandwidth/area. Which means that this won't be useful for any
significant amount of backhaul, only for last mile service in low density
areas. Their groundstations will certainly have good connections to AWS, no
doubt, but I don't see a huge market for good connection to AWS from sparse
area.s

There are some niches, for example oil/gas extraction like the article
mentioned, but nothing huge. Maybe Amazon plans on making a play for in-car
services providing both the internet connection, and back-end in AWS. But car
internet connections have been shifting towards bluetooth as everyone already
has phones and service, and it is wasteful to have another service for the
car.

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HeadsUpHigh
You don't need high bandwidth density for this kind of usage. A single
downlink in an area connecting to some datacenter in LEO could be useful for
latency sensitive stuff. Then on top of that there's a huge market hasn't been
cracked yet which is automated planting of crops. It needs 1-2 cm of accuracy
to be useful and the best in the market currently is at 6cm. Plus all kinds of
IoT stuff and long-range latency sensitive backhaul( in which case LEO
constellations win because the distance is actually smaller due to the low
number of trans-oceanic cables and the high number of switches along the way).

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growlist
“They own all these things the other guys don’t,” says Manchester. “In a lot
of ways, Amazon has a grander vision. They’re not trying to be a telco.”

Damn SpaceX and their mediocre ambitions like _colonising Mars_ (◔_◔)

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aliswe
"With Amazon, it’s a whole different ballgame," says Zac Manchester, an
assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University.
“The thing that makes Amazon different from SpaceX and OneWeb is they have so
much other stuff going for them.” If Kuiper succeeds, Amazon can not only
offer global satellite broadband access—it can include that access as part of
its Amazon Web Services (AWS), which already offers resources for cloud
computing, machine learning, data analytics, and more."

Does that quote sound fishy or what?

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almost_usual
It sounds like marketing for AWS.

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maxdo
maybe this guy will receive some amazon cloud bonuses for his students :) At
least our discussion will support some education projects and also make some
amazon Guys more happy :)

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gaukes
I’ve seen this a lot with professors of industry-focused business schools in
universities. I think they’re either getting funding / paid or using the
connections to pull strings.

These professors usually consult with a lot of government organizations and
older companies. If you can make these professors your corporate shill, I
guess it’s good marketing.

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aliswe
Did you see the doc "Bananas" where Dole paid a prof to issue a statement
comparing it to the antisemite propaganda of ww2 germany?

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51Cards
Additionally I think replicating AWS is much easier these days than
replicating the entire technology stack needed to competatively launch /
maintain an entire fleet of satellites. Replicating AWS is a solved problem...
throw money at it and you can build data center services. Affordably building
and launching satellites at scale is much harder.

Seems like SpaceX matching AWS would take much less effort than the reverse.

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maxdo
Feels like fanboy of Amazon wrote " yeah " this service + this service will be
something sooo great, in practice ... Any satellite service solving last mile
access and maybe potentially a bit low delay DC exchange when traffic is not
very high. Means some exclusive, expensive service. That can be offered by any
other provdier by purchasing similar package from Starlink or any other
competitor.

In real life, lets be realistic Starlink is something will solve suburb
access, also gives them an ability to exercise before Mars/Moon/something_else
deployment. The impact on DC will be tiny.

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jpalomaki
Could Amazon Prime integration be more relevant than AWS integration? More
services for consumers against fixed monthly fee.

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riffraff
yeah, this could be v2.0 of "kindle comes with global data connectivity".

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apendleton
This service will operate in a similar band to Starlink, which requires a
pizza-box-sized fixed receiver with a clear view of the sky. And SpaceX was
only able to get it even this small due to development of new phased-array
antenna technology, which, at least as far as we know, nobody else has
replicated (at least at a consumer-accessible price point).

All of which is to say: current technology, and physics, probably won't ever
allow this to be baked into a Kindle.

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ttul
There are definitely advantages to having an always-present network and not
relying on terrestrial networks operated by third parties. Many big AWS users
are companies with extensive sensor networks. Replacing ancient SCADA networks
with high bandwidth space networks that connect to your back end inside AWS is
a strong value prop.

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paulsutter
Bizarre claim. In what way would Starlink have any less access to AWS? Its...
the internet

> “If Kuiper succeeds, Amazon can not only offer global satellite broadband
> access—it can include that access as part of its Amazon Web Services (AWS),
> which already offers resources for cloud computing, machine learning, data
> analytics, and more”

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JumpCrisscross
> _In what way would Starlink have any less access to AWS?_

It’s a distribution advantage.

To sign up a new customer, Starlink has to...sign up a new customer.
Contracts, configuration, payment details, integration. Kuiper, on the other
hand, has to get them to click a button on a dashboard.

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apendleton
But in either case you need to acquire and mount a physical doodad to your
house (or vehicle or office or whatever), right? Entering a credit card number
again seems comparatively inconsequential in either case.

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count
AWS Downlink between regions for higher cost but lower latency global xfer? It
might not all be cloud->office, but maybe intra-cloud.

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valuearb
“ If Kuiper succeeds, Amazon can not only offer global satellite broadband
access—it can include that access as part of its Amazon Web Services (AWS),
which already offers resources for cloud computing, machine learning, data
analytics, and more.”

No they can’t. A handful of Kuiper subscribers in Los Angeles can saturate all
of available bandwidth in LA. These satellite constellations are only going to
be useful for subscribers in relatively remote and less dense areas.

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jefft255
I don’t get this article. How should an ISP benefit from being a cloud
provider? He says that they’re going to be able to « move data to and from AWS
» or something... 1) that’s a terrible idea it will be slow 2) Starlink should
work just as well for that.

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thinkcontext
The synergy of using AWS ground stations for customers as well as their own
use is an interesting advantage. SpaceX has to spend on ground stations and
won't make it up until their service goes online, while Amazon can begin
recovering their costs right away. And it just plugs in to all their other AWS
services as well. Plus Amazon of course has all the best on the ground network
infrastructure already in place, SpaceX will have to develop that.

Is there any indication of how many customers they have or how much revenue
they get from it?

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mcot2
SpaceX has a tremendous first mover advantage and a ton more experience in
Space. Networking talent and building things on earth is not hard to buy.

Starlink is ready to go now and already is in Beta. They have more customers
signing up for the beta than they can handle and they can charge practically
any price they want for this service since nothing else like it exists.

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thinkcontext
Not sure what you have written has to do with what I said. I did not address
the overall merits of Starlink vs Kuiper just the ground station aspect of the
developing services.

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nickysielicki
I know this might sound a bit cheap but I think there are national security
concerns that are worth mentioning. You simply can’t rely on satellites for
domestic backhaul unless you’re prepared for it to go away as soon as a war
starts.

If a simpleton like me is capable of taking a Yagi into my backyard and
talking on AMSAT birds with a 5 watt handheld radio, it’s not entirely
unreasonable to believe that someone well funded would be capable of tracking
and destroying a cubesat in orbit.

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gecko
That's honestly an entirely legitimate point, but no nation, to my knowledge,
at this point in time, has the ability to take out _thousands_ of satellites,
which is what either this or SpaceX's variant use. Besides which, taking out
that many satellites would run a very real, very likely risk of kicking off an
actual end to space exploration for a century while we waited for the space
dust to settle. I'm not saying "no," but I'm saying "less likely than you
think."

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baptou12
To some extent Tesla could be Starlink's AWS. Every Tesla user could be a
potential starlink customer. Could we even imagine a more efficient data
collection?

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apendleton
The service isn't expected to work very well in the urban areas where I assume
most current Tesla owners live, so I'm not sure this is a particularly natural
fit. Also, it requires a bulky receiver.

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pmontra
> Ka band (26.5 to 40 gigahertz)

I confess I didn't research it before asking but how does it withstand the
attenuation due to bad weather, rain and storms. OK, at worst it should
penetrate about 10 km of clouds and rains and an antenna on the ground could
be farther away than that, but the source of the signal is at least 10 times
more distant (100 times weaker for the same power?)

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maxdo
I don't get main point of this article, ok, any cloud provider tomorrow will
buy access point from star link how it will make it different to AWS + their
satellite services ?

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almost_usual
This article is irrelevant, put something in space and maybe it’s meaningful.

