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Amazon said Friday that it has signed a deal with SpaceX, its main rival in the internet satellite business, for three launches of its Kuiper satellites as the company faces a deadline to put its spacecraft into orbit.
The contract is a victory for SpaceX and further evidence that its Falcon 9 rocket has become the workhorse of the U.S. space industry. This also came months after an Amazon shareholder accused the company in a lawsuit of not awarding a launch order to SpaceX due to a rivalry between Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
Amazon had previously announced deals with three other rocket companies, including Blue Origin, Bezos’ space company. But none of those rockets have ever flown, and under its license from the Federal Communications Commission, Amazon must put into orbit half of the 3,236 satellites it plans for its service by July 2026. (Bezos also owns the Washington Post. Interim Post CEO Patty Stonesifer is on Amazon’s board.)
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service is already operational and rapidly expanding its reach, with around 5,000 satellites in orbit. Amazon only launched its first two prototype satellites in October. The company said these two work as expected and “validate key technologies underlying the network.”
Both services are designed to transmit internet signals to ground stations in remote areas that lack reliable broadband access.
In a statement, Amazon said the launches on SpaceX would take place in 2025. It noted the Falcon 9’s proven track record, saying it had “executed more than 270 successful launches to date.”
To compete with SpaceX, Amazon has said it will invest $10 billion in Kuiper and announced last year that it would launch its satellites with Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan and Ariane 6 from Arianespace. But all three have faced delays as Amazon faces a time crunch.
Those launch contracts sparked a lawsuit in August from an Amazon shareholder alleging the company breached its fiduciary duty by not considering handing over the launch business to SpaceX, one of the world’s most affordable and reliable launch vehicle providers.
“By excluding SpaceX, Bezos and his management team minimized bidding competition for the launch agreements and likely required Amazon to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more than it otherwise would have had to,” the lawsuit says.
It is also claimed that the rivalry between Bezos and Musk was the reason Amazon did not award a launch contract to SpaceX. “Given their bitter track record, Bezos had every reason to exclude Musk’s SpaceX from the process entirely,” the lawsuit says. “And Bezos, one has to assume, couldn’t suppress his pride and enlist the help of his bitter rival to launch the Amazon satellites.”
Last year, Dave Limp, then Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services, said in an interview with The Washington Post that Amazon was “open to discussions with SpaceX.” Given their track record, it would be crazy not to.”
He said at the time that the Falcon 9 is “probably at the lower end of the capacity that we need.” But he added that the company could deploy its Falcon Heavy or Starship, which are capable of putting more mass into orbit transport.
Limp will take over as CEO of Blue Origin on Monday.
Amazon celebrated the successful flight of its two prototypes, but said it still has a long way to go.
“Kuiper was an idea on a piece of paper a few years ago, and everything we have learned so far from our prototype flight mission validates our original vision and architecture,” said Rajeev Badyal, vice president of technology at Project Kuiper, in a statement. “We still have a lot of hard work ahead of us and scaling up for mass production will not be easy.”