[서울신문] Bezos and Musk fight over satellite internet technology

▲ Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Amazon fought over satellite internet technology. The photo shows SpaceX’s manned spacecraft’Resilience’ being launched on a Falcon 9 rocket at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA. Cape Canaveral Reuters Yonhap News

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Amazon have fought over satellite internet technology. While Amazon pointed out that SpaceX’s demand for regulatory changes hinders competition, SpaceX has publicly criticized Amazon’s technological prowess as not competing.

According to the US economic channel CNBC Broadcasting, Amazon and SpaceX held a nervous war on Twitter on the 26th (local time) over the orbit correction of the satellite-based Internet network construction project. SpaceX, which plans to launch 12,000 small satellites in low Earth orbit for the’Starlink Project’, a global high-speed Internet network construction project, recently requested the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to lower the flight orbit. . At the same time, he accused Amazon of opposing altitude change as an attempt to “suffocate competition.”

Amazon, which is working on the’Kiper Project’, a satellite-based broadband service, raised an objection, saying that if SpaceX lowers its orbit, it could collide with its satellite. Amazon plans to launch a satellite in an orbit 590km above the surface, while SpaceX announced that it will launch the satellite in the 540~570km section. In response to Amazon’s objection, Musk’s CEO commented on his Twitter, “It is not in the public interest to disrupt Starlink for Amazon’s satellite system, which is only a few years old.”

In a statement by Musk, Amazon said in a statement, “We designed the Kuiper project in a way that avoids collisions with Starlink.” “SpaceX’s attempts to reorbit not only create a dangerous environment for satellite collisions. It also causes disruption of customer communication.” He criticized, “It is SpaceX that interferes with the competition between satellite systems. If possible, stopping competition from the cradle will benefit SpaceX, but not the public interest.”

Amazon, led by Bezos CEO, received approval from the FCC in July of last year and invested 10 billion dollars (about 11 trillion won) to carry out the Kuiper project. It has not yet launched any satellites, but plans to launch all 3236 satellites. SpaceX, which started a beta (demonstration) program in October last year, has recently sent over 1,000 satellites into space, including the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket with 143 satellites.

Senior Reporter Kyu-Hwan Kim [email protected]