Investing in Space: Why Amazon bought rocket launches from rival SpaceX

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Have you ever finished all your holiday shopping — list meticulously checked off and gifts ready to wrap — only to realize with the big day fast-approaching that you miscalculated and have last-minute buying to do?

In that final push, you may turn to Amazon, the dominant e-commerce platform known for its notoriously speedy shipping. Well, last week, Amazon was the crunch-time shopper and the dominant platform with speedy shipping was SpaceX. 

Amazon bought a trio of SpaceX rocket launches for its Kuiper internet satellite project. The big day Amazon was shopping for? A federal regulatory requirement to get 1,618 satellites in space in the next 2½ years.

A brief recount of Amazon’s rocket shopping spree thus far. Before last week, the company ordered 94 rocket launches from four companies, none of which were SpaceX:

• United Launch Alliance: 47 launches (38 on Vulcan rockets and 9 on Atlas V)
• Blue Origin: 12 launches, plus an option for 15 more (New Glenn)
• Arianespace: 18 launches (Ariane 6)
• ABL: 2 launches (RS1)

All of the above fall into the “heavy” class of rockets, aside from ABL’s RS1 – which was originally signed on to launch Kuiper’s first two prototype satellites. Those prototypes ended up going on an Atlas V instead after a double-rocket-swap, but Amazon still has its ABL contract for any future needs.

Some back-of-the-napkin math, based on the estimated mass of Kuiper satellites and the flying capacity of the rockets at Amazon’s disposal: The remaining eight Atlas V launches should be able fly about 25 Kuiper satellites per mission. With the Atlas V vehicles standing by, that gets Amazon its first 200 or so commercial Kuiper satellites in orbit – only 1,400 to go!

Development of Vulcan, New Glenn and Ariane 6 are each respectively running years behind schedule. Not a huge surprise, given how rocket development often goes, but a problem for Amazon’s FCC deployment deadline. And thus, Kuiper found itself back in the metaphorical gift aisle and turned to SpaceX, the owner of Starlink satellite internet service, which Kuiper aims to compete with. 

Will that be enough to fill Amazon’s pressing need? It’s still an open question, and I could easily see Amazon buying more Falcon 9 launches. SpaceX’s rocket competitors all ostensibly have debuts slated over the next year or so — but the initial launches of Vulcan, Ariane 6 and New Glenn will need to go smoothly, and ramp up flight rates quickly, if Amazon is to avoid another last-resort purchase. 

• Starship plans propellant transfer demo for next launch: NASA and SpaceX are reviewing plans for whether the third Starship test flight will include a test of the rocket’s ability to transfer cryogenic propellant while in orbit. – CNBC
• Drugmakers venture into space-based production, as companies including LambdaVision, Eli Lilly, Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb test the benefits of creating valuable drugs in orbit. – Bloomberg
• Italian rocket operator Avio reportedly misplaced tanks for final Vega launch, leaving the organization scrambling to figure out an alternative. Two propellants tanks went missing and then were found to have been turned to scrap. – European Spaceflight
• NASA’s asteroid return capsule survived parachute problems, as the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft’s drogue chute did not deploy but the main chute deployed in time to land safely. – ArsTechnica
• Former Blue Origin manager sues company for wrongful termination: Craig Stoker, previously program manager for the company’s BE-4 rocket engine, alleges that he was fired by outgoing CEO Bob Smith in October after raising safety concerns earlier in the year that threatened to delay delivery of the company’s engines to customer United Launch Alliance. – TechCrunch
• NASA’s JPL battling staff retention amid heavy mission workload. The the lab is pushing to make fixes in attracting and retaining top talent after review of Pysche mission. – Scientific American
• Angola becomes 33rd country to sign Artemis Accords, the third African nation to date. – SpaceNews
• Dave Limp starts work as Blue Origin CEO, posting on Tuesday that he went through employee orientation alongside other new hires and is “excited to get started” leading the company. – Limp

• SpaceX valuation reportedly to reach $175 billion: The company has reportedly begun discussions for an insider share sale of between $500 million and $750 million, at about $95 a share. – Bloomberg
• Intelsat expands American Airlines Wi-Fi deal to 500 regional aircraft, planning to install new multi-orbit antennas on the planes that can connect both with Intelsat and Eutelsat OneWeb’s satellites. – American
• Satellogic signs ‘multi-million dollar’ deal with Southeast Asian company Uzma, which includes Satellogic-built UzmaSAT-1 set to launch in the second half of 2024. – Satellogic
• DARPA selects 14 companies for lunar architecture contracts as the R&D defense agency looks to identify the moon business opportunity through seven-month studies. The 14 companies were: Blue Origin, CisLunar Industries, Crescent Space Services, Fibertek, Firefly, GITAI, Helios, Honeybee Robotics, ICON, Nokia of America, Northrop Grumman, Redwire, Sierra Space and SpaceX. – DARPA
• Spire to build and launch six satellites for Internet of Things specialist Lacuna, which will operate the payloads on the satellites. – Spire
• Ursa Major raises $138 million in pair of funding rounds from investors including Explorer 1 Fund, Eclipse, RTX Ventures, BlackRock, Exor Ventures, Mack & Co., XN and SV Pacific Ventures. The company plans to use the funds to scale development and production of Lynx, its solid rocket motor. – Ursa Major
• Space situational awareness startup NorthStar raises $14.7 million in a round from Telesystem Space, the government of Quebec and the Luxembourg Future Fund. The company plans to launch its first four satellites early next year. – SpaceIntelReport

• 6th Morgan Stanley Space Summit highlights a market of ‘Haves and Have Nots,’ with the firm’s analysts emphasizing the “turtle mode” of many space companies this year. “Private capital is placing a premium on defensible business models, entrenched moats, and near-term profitability potential,” the firm wrote in a recap of its event. – Morgan Stanley
• Japanese satellite imagery startup iQPS goes public on the Tokyo exchange, raising about $24 million in the IPO. The company is building and launching small synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites. – Reuters
• Momentus’ latest mission suffers problem with third-party deployer: The company disclosed that, of the five payloads it supported on the SpaceX Transporter-9 launch, Momentous believes three satellites were not released. Momentous did not name who built the deployer but said it is investigating the cause of the failure. – Momentus

• Dec. 8: SpaceX Falcon 9 launches Starlink satellites from California.
• Dec. 10: SpaceX Falcon Heavy launches Space Force’s X-37B spaceplane on the USSF-52 mission from Florida.
• Dec. 10: SpaceX Falcon 9 launches Starlink satellites from Florida.
• Dec. 12: Rocket Lab Electron launches iQPS’ TSUKUYOMI-I from New Zealand.