Not sure if they are dead in the water or not. However, they have until July 30, 2026 to deploy half of their fleet or they lose the FCC granted frequencies. The fleet is 3232 satellites.
So far they launched 2 test satellites. They contracted most of the launches to either new rockets or ones in development, like New Glenn, Ariane 6, ULA Vulcan. They actually had to contract three Falcon 9 launches to help out with that. In reality, I think SpaceX will end up launching a lot more than that.
Unless FCC is willing to be lenient, 50% of the satellites will be hard to accomplish by the deadline.
The quick maths indicates that to achieve this, they’d have to launch 22.5 satellites per week every week for the next 18 months until that deadline. SpaceX seems to be launching at nearly twice that rate, having launched [1565 satellites](https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/10/30/live-coverage-spacex-t....) in the first 10 months of this year.
> I am sure it's doable if all the space providers work together and there aren't any showstoppers.
Are you living in a different world that me?
NO company or Government on Earth outside SpaceX has the capability to launch more than about 15 orbital rockets per year. Most are in the 5-10 per year range.
That's why I said "if all the space providers work together". That obviously includes SpaceX - they would be doing the heavy lifting here (mind pun intended).
> NO company or Government on Earth
Not that it's a possibility for Kuiper, but China had 67 launches in 2023.
I doubt that very much. Gwynne Shotwell stated multiple times that they will work with whoever. In addition, SpaceX is already contracted for 3 launches of Kuiper.
