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Bezos began to speed up to catch up with his old rival Musk .
Amazon, which he founded and now serves as a director, has just finalized with three rocket companies: 83 launches in five years, for a total of 3236 satellites.
The three companies include Bezos' own Blue Origin, Arianespace, the world's first commercial launch service provider, and the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
In this regard, some media even commented:
Bezos has bought almost every rocket except SpaceX for the next five years.
It was said to be the company's largest ever commercial transaction, costing at least $10 billion.
However, netizens are obviously not interested in this space race:
More space junk appeared.
Overall is not optimistic
Yes, most people are really not very optimistic about Amazon's plan at the moment.
Mainly because the rockets provided by these three rocket companies carrying satellites have not actually flown so far.
Judging from the details of the plan announced by Amazon, the tasks undertaken by the three companies are:
Blue Origin: 12 new Glenn rocket launches, with 15 more rocket launches undecided
Arianespace: Ariane 6 rocket launches 18 times
United Launch Alliance: 38 Vulcan rocket launches
Among them, the new Glen rocket is a reusable heavy launch vehicle developed since 2012, and the first flight is currently scheduled to be no earlier than the fourth quarter of 2022.
Ariane 6 is a disposable launch vehicle that first flew in the second quarter of 2022.
Vulcan is a heavy launch vehicle that will make its first flight in 2022.
In this regard, some netizens called Amazon's project "quite ambitious":
We're talking about three rockets that have never flown before, and if they succeed, it's fine, but a delay may be the best option.
At the same time, none of the three rockets signed are repeatable, so the cost of Bezos' side is undoubtedly higher than the Falcon 9, which has become an N-hand rocket and can be used repeatedly.
Now, the internal cost of Musk launching a rocket is around $20 million, but what about Bezos' side?
Some media estimate that Bezos will spend at least 3 times the price, and some people even think that this number may be 6 times to 7 times.
Bezos, who has been chasing
Bezos's project, known as Project Kuiper, is a direct target for both the content and goals of the Starlink project.
The project was first launched in 2019 and two prototype satellites are planned for the fourth quarter of 2022.
Compared with the Starlink program, which was launched as early as 2015 and launched the first satellite in 2018, it is 4 years behind overall.
It can be said that Bezos has been catching up, but Musk and his SpaceX have always been the absolute kings of the commercial space field.
And these two old rivals have also played in the field of aerospace for more than ten years.
In 2013, SpaceX beat Blue Origin to get the right to use the 39A launch pad, the same one used by Saturn 5, which carried the Apollo series of spacecraft.
In 2015, SpaceX won a patent dispute related to the landing of rockets at sea, and Blue Origin was forced to withdraw 13 patents.
In 2019, SpaceX and ULA won the U.S. Air Force's defense rocket contract, and Blue Origin lost again.
In 2021, Bezos managed to pull musk down: a 50-page protest letter that successfully got NASA to stop SpaceX's moon landing contract.
In public, the two have also fought several warloads of words.
For example, Bezos mocked Musk's famous "Martian dream" in 2019:
Go to Mount Everest for a year and see if you like it or not. Compared to Mars, it's heaven.
Last year, Bezos successfully toured space in his own spacecraft, and Musk sneered that this was just suborbital flight and did not enter space at all.
So this time, does this step taken by Bezos make new progress in the "space race" between the two?
See.
参考链接：[1]https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/amazon-signs-blockbuster-launch-deal-for-its-satellite-megaconstellation/[2]https://www.forbes.com/sites/madelinehalpert/2022/04/05/amazon-signs-rocket-contracts-with-3-firms-including-bezos-blue-origin-for-multibillion-dollar-satellite-project/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie&sh=1c4e71b61044