SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper race turns hot ahead of FCC

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have become “centibillionaires” through their successful business ventures in largely independent industries here on Earth. But now, they are quietly competing outside of Earth’s atmosphere for space territory to deploy their respective giant satellite constellations, known as Starlink and Kuiper.

Earlier this year, SpaceX filed a change request with the FCC, asking the federal agency to allow Starlink to change a series of satellite settings. This app remained on hold after Amazon-owned Kuiper Systems raised concerns with the FCC, saying the changes SpaceX requested would result in a future orbital overlap of Starlink satellites and its own satellites, which operate at elevations. similar.

Specifically, SpaceX has proposed to lower the operating altitudes of a future group of Starlink satellites from 1,110 to 1,325 kilometers, its previous range, to 540-570 kilometers. The company argued that deploying satellites at this relatively low altitude will help reduce broadband signal latency and make it easier to deorbit future space debris in Earth’s atmosphere.

The problem is, it’s too close to where Kuiper wants to deploy satellites. Kuiper’s lowest orbital shell is 590 km, with a tolerance of 9 km above or below. And the top end of SpaceX’s modified orbital shell is 570 km, with a tolerance of 30 km. That means when the Kuiper constellation is fully deployed (the 590 km cluster is the last group deployed by Kuiper), the Starlink and Kuiper satellites would likely share a 20 km orbital shell.

SpaceX made a major concession this week. In a letter to the FCC on Tuesday from SpaceX satellite policy chief David Goldman, the company agreed to restrict all Starlink satellites to 580 km, or just 1 km below the lowest altitude range of Kuiper, once Kuiper is launched. .

“Following discussions with Amazon, SpaceX has now committed to accept the condition proposed by Amazon to resolve its issue,” the letter said. “Once this issue is resolved, SpaceX asks the Commission to grant its change as soon as possible.”

SpaceX stressed that the deployment of this polar shell was a key step in testing the Starlink service in some of the most remote regions of the world, including Alaska. The company added that polar orbital coverage will contribute to national security by supporting critical government missions in areas where satellite internet access is the only option.

But Kuiper has other concerns with SpaceX’s plans. In its change request, SpaceX also offered to reduce the minimum elevation angle of Starlink ground stations from 40 ° to 25 ° so as to compensate for reduced satellite coverage due to changes in altitude (lower satellites cover less ground when broadcasting signals).

Kuiper argued that lower elevation angles, combined with a reduction in altitude, would increase the line interference events between the two constellations by up to 250%. It will take some time for Kuiper to verify these estimates, as it has not yet deployed any satellites.

The Amazon subsidiary plans to eventually launch 3,200 satellites to form the constellation. The company received clearance for deployment from the FCC in July.