As the space quarrel escalates, Elon Musk stimulates Jeff Bezos

Posted on by William
The competition between SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has surfaced on Twitter. again. (Musk photo: TED via YouTube; Bezos photo: GeekWire/Kevin Lisota)

In a regulatory dispute between SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation and Amazon’s competing project Kuiper Project, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk sent out a series of new acrimonious tweets to Amazon and Blue Origin’s founder Jeff Bezos .

And this time, it involves space lasers.

The spark that ignited Musk’s latest flame war followed closely SpaceX seeks approval from the Federal Communications Commission to revise its plan Launch tens of thousands of Starlink satellites to provide global broadband services. The amendment will allow SpaceX to use its giant Starship rocket currently under development to send its Gen2 satellites into various orbits.

as a response, Amazon urges FCC Dismissed SpaceX’s request, saying that the amendment proposed “two mutually exclusive configurations” for the Starlink constellation, with too many unresolved details.And respond That, SpaceX told the FCC Amazon’s filing is “just the latest step in its continued efforts to slow competition.”

SpaceX also complained that Amazon failed to address the FCC’s concerns about the Kuiper plan. More than a year ago, the FCC conditionally approved Amazon’s plan-provided that Kuiper satellites would not interfere with previously approved satellite systems, including Starlink. SpaceX pointed out that Amazon has not yet submitted documents showing how it plans to avoid interference and ensure the safety of satellite operations.

According to the previous FCC’s approval, more than 1,700 first-generation Starlink satellites have been launched, and Internet services are currently underway. Extended beta testing.

The background of the Starlink dispute is that Bezos’s other big idea, Blue Origin, has filed a legal protest with NASA, asking it to award a $2.9 billion lunar lander contract to SpaceX. Due to Blue Origin’s lawsuit, NASA and SpaceX have suspended the use of Starship as a landing system for a manned mission to the moon, which is currently scheduled for 2024. (However, this date seems increasingly impossible, not just because of litigation.)

In today’s tweet, Musk mentioned the FCC documents and the lunar lander dispute, mentioned Bezos, but did not mention his name:

Musk also mentioned Bezos on Twitter last week, even though he misspelled the billionaire’s name:

We have contacted Amazon and Blue Origin for any response, but Bezos himself is unlikely to fight back.this Recently posted on Bezos’ Twitter account At one and a half years old, Musk’s ridicule has not been improved before.Nowadays, Bezos prefers Post Instagram updates, One of them said Good things about SpaceX. (Musk Vow to shut down Instagram in 2018, but His old account Exists as a fan site. )

At the same time, the Federal Communications Commission has just issued a New application Among them, Amazon seeks the approval of the committee to test the prototype antenna of the Kuiper project in its laboratory in Redmond, Washington.

The company said: “This grant will enable Amazon to further enhance and validate the components of the Kuiper system to serve the public interest.”

The Kuiper satellite has not been put into orbit, but in April, Amazon and the United Launch Alliance reached an agreement to use ULA’s Atlas V rocket for nine launches.