News: 0178649720

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Amazon's Starlink Competitor Tops 100 Satellites (cnbc.com)

(Tuesday August 12, 2025 @03:00AM (BeauHD) from the one-prime-delivery-at-a-time dept.)


After four weather-related delays, Amazon successfully launched 24 more Kuiper internet satellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9, [1]bringing its total to 102 . CNBC reports:

> SpaceX's Starlink is currently the dominant provider of low-earth orbit satellite internet, with a constellation of roughly 8,000 satellites and about 5 million customers worldwide. Amazon is racing to get more of its Kuiper satellites into space to meet a deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC requires that Amazon have about 1,600 satellites in orbit by the end of July 2026, with the full 3,236-satellite constellation launched by July 2029.

>

> Amazon has booked up to 83 launches, including three rides with SpaceX. While the company is still in the early stages of building out its constellation, Amazon has already inked deals with governments as it hopes to begin commercial service later this year.



[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/11/amazon-kuiper-internet-satellites-launch.html



MOAR (Score:1)

by Mirddes ( 798147 )

these constellations are only gonna be good if they mesh together; without interoperability whats the point OF CLUTTERING THE SKY?

Re: (Score:2)

by sg_oneill ( 159032 )

One of these days a SpaceX dragon capsule launch is going to get ganked by SpaceX starlink satellite debris , and when that happens, I'm going to ignore my better demons and go to the pub to celebrate.

Hello darkness my old friend .. (Score:2)

by Mirnotoriety ( 10462951 )

I mean - all their shit is from china - and china steal everyone's IP

It's the comments such as the above that keeps me coming back here /s

Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same
rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more
efficient would the current models be? If you have not already heard the
analogy, the answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a
Rolls-Royce for $2.75, it would do three million miles to the gallon, and
it would deliver enough power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you
were interested in miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on
a pinhead.
-- Christopher Evans