Amazon Kuiper places largest commercial launch order with ULA, Arianespace, Blue

[mkent]

Amazon have signed Kuiper launch contracts with ULA, Blue Origin, and Arianespace. A lot of launch contracts.
38 Vulcan launches, 18 Ariane 6 launches, and 12 New Glenn launches (with an option for an additional 15).

Don't look now, but if I've counted correctly, ULA now has more external commercial launches on its manifest than SpaceX does.

[kevinof]

Amazon have signed Kuiper launch contracts with ULA, Blue Origin, and Arianespace. A lot of launch contracts.
<b>38 Vulcan launches</b>, 18 Ariane 6 launches, and 12 New Glenn launches (with an option for an additional 15).

Don't look now, but if I've counted correctly, ULA now has more external commercial launches on its manifest than SpaceX does.

Yes but what I’d love to know is at what margin? A low margin deal  might allow them to scale and fill out the books but that doesn’t last forever. Will be interesting to see.

[TrevorMonty]

Amazon have signed Kuiper launch contracts with ULA, Blue Origin, and Arianespace. A lot of launch contracts.
<b>38 Vulcan launches</b>, 18 Ariane 6 launches, and 12 New Glenn launches (with an option for an additional 15).

Don't look now, but if I've counted correctly, ULA now has more external commercial launches on its manifest than SpaceX does.

Yes but what I’d love to know is at what margin? A low margin deal  might allow them to scale and fill out the books but that doesn’t last forever. Will be interesting to see.

Profit is likely to go up on missions booked before Amazon deal. The higher volumes mean all 80 odd LVs on their manifest should be lot cheaper to manufacture.
Investing in automated manufacturing becomes lot more viable as volumes go up, this applies to most of their suppliers. The other plus is lead times should drop allowing them to be more responsive.




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[Jim]

1.  First you argued how Kuiper is not Bezos's play toy because Bezos doesn't have the majority of Amazon shares.

2.  Now you're arguing that Kuiper shares your personal disdain of SpaceX and so will rather choose expendable rockets than finance SpaceX.

So which is it?

3.And remember, you got equally upset over people predicting oneWeb should choose  SpaceX. You just forgot the personal angle deorbited when Wyler got the boot.

1.  Just stated a fact and correcting wrong information.   And because of that, it isn’t The same as Blue Origin.  Kuiper has other bosses to satisfy.

2.  It have no personal disdain for SpaceX, much less to share.  My beef is with SpaceX amazing people.  Kuiper not using SpaceX because it would be funding Starlink is a legitimate business practice.

3.  Jeesh!  Upset? Nothing of the sort.  Just questioning the mindset that doesn’t look past SpaceX(see #2) for answers.

I work with SpaceX daily on multiple missions. So what you think my views (you are reading too much into posts) are not reality.  It’s just another symptom of your skewed view of reality.

[meekGee]

1.  First you argued how Kuiper is not Bezos's play toy because Bezos doesn't have the majority of Amazon shares.

2.  Now you're arguing that Kuiper shares your personal disdain of SpaceX and so will rather choose expendable rockets than finance SpaceX.

So which is it?

3.And remember, you got equally upset over people predicting oneWeb should choose  SpaceX. You just forgot the personal angle deorbited when Wyler got the boot.

1.  Just stated a fact and correcting wrong information.   And because of that, it isn’t The same as Blue Origin.  Kuiper has other bosses to satisfy.

2.  It have no personal disdain for SpaceX, much less to share.  My beef is with SpaceX amazing people.  Kuiper not using SpaceX because it would be funding Starlink is a legitimate business practice.

3.  Jeesh!  Upset? Nothing of the sort.  Just questioning the mindset that doesn’t look past SpaceX(see #2) for answers.

I work with SpaceX daily on multiple missions. So what you think my views (you are reading too much into posts) are not reality.  It’s just another symptom of your skewed view of reality.

Thing is, most of your fanboi concern is self-created.

Because some fans are under informed (which is always the case) you get trapped into shooting down everything everyone says, including things that are otherwise completely sensible, and many things that in retrospect have proven to be accurate.

In fact the way SpaceX's trajectory has been tracking, it's statistically impossible that those were all lucky guesses. Maybe some of the amazing people actually understood a thing or two.

This recent argument is an excellent case in point. No reasonable observer would miss the importance and criticallity of Boca Chica to the SpaceX Mars program, nor would they miss the importance of Starship in general, irrespective of whether DoD takes full advantage of it early or not.

You OTOH are getting lost in the details, about procurement policies and fairing diameters and who knows what else, and are missing the overall picture, much as you did with F9 and Starlink.