Continuing the ongoing rivalry between two founders of billionaire companies, SpaceX chief Elon Musk responded to Amazon’s lawsuit saying that filing legal actions against his company is Jeff Bezos' full time job.
This came after Amazon asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to dismiss SpaceX’s latest amendment to its Starlink satellite network, CNBC reported.
“While Amazon has waited 15 months to explain how its system works, it has lodged objections to SpaceX on average about 16 days this year,” SpaceX had said in a letter addressed to Marlene Dotch, Secretary at FCC.
The letter further stated that Amazon’s move is the latest in its continuing efforts to slow down competition, while “neglecting to resolve the Commission’s concerns about Amazon’s own non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite system.”
Amazon had announced in July that it will invest more than $10 billion to build a network of 3,236 satellites that will provide high-speed broadband internet services to people around the world who lack such access. This was followed by FCC’s approval of the plan, called “Project Kuiper”, for the constellation of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites that will compete with the Starlink network being built out by Musk’s SpaceX.
“A project of this scale requires significant effort and resources, and, due to the nature of LEO constellations, it is not the kind of initiative that can start small. You have to commit,” the company had said in a blog post.
By comparison, SpaceX has launched over 500 satellites of the roughly 12,000 expected for its Starlink constellation in low Earth orbit and plans to offer broadband service in the United States and Canada by the year’s end. The FCC approved SpaceX’s request in 2018.
SpaceX’s letter further stated that Amazon had failed to reply to Commission’s July 2020 order that informed Amazon that it had failed to provide sufficient information about how its proposed system would protect others from interference or meet the Commission’s rules for orbital debris.
“While Amazon has filed nothing with the commission to address these conditions on its own license for nearly 400 days, it took only 4 days to object to SpaceX’s next generation NGSO system,” the letter said.
This isn’t the first time that the two billionaires have locked horns. In August, Musk took a dig at Bezos for trying to lobby the government instead of focusing on building rockets. “If lobbying and lawyers could get you to orbit, Bezos would be on Pluto right now,” Musk said in a tweet in response to a user on the microblogging platform.
The two technocrats who have been trying to launch long-range orbital rockets, were competing for a coveted contract from the government to build a spaceship to deliver astronauts to the moon as early as 2024.
[Input from Reuters]
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