Elon Musk blasts Jeff Bezos and says he ‘retired in order to pursue full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX’ as Amazon files protest against another launch of Starlink satellites

• Elon Musk criticized Jeff Bezos on Twitter, after Amazon filed a protest against SpaceX launching another batch of its Starlink internet satellites into orbit
•  Musk said Bezos retired to take on a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX
• The recent filing comes as Bezos’ Blue Origin sued NASA this month in protest against SpaceX being the sole winner of a lunar lander contract 

Elon Musk is taking Amazon’s recent protest with Federal Communications Commission against SpaceX personal, blasting Jeff Bezos, his space rival, on social media.  

The SpaceX CEO criticized Bezos in a tweet on Friday, saying it ‘turns out Besos [sic] retired in order to purse a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX.’  

Amazon filed a protest with the FCC on Wednesday to block SpaceX from launching another batch of its Starlink satellites. 

The petition was filed by Amazon’s subsidiary Kupier Systems, which is developing its own internet satellites to compete with SpaceX’s business.

Kupier’s filing is not to stop Starlink altogether, but questioning SpaceX’s plans that it says goes against FCC’s rules.

‘The SpaceX Amendment proposes two different configurations for the nearly 30,000 satellites of its Gen2 System, each of which arranges these satellites along very different orbital parameters,’ Mariah Dodson Shuman, corporate counsel for Kuiper Systems, wrote in the document.

‘SpaceX’s novel approach of applying for two mutually exclusive configurations is at odds with both the Commission’s rules and public policy and we urge the Commission to dismiss this amendment.’ 

The filing follows another complaint from Bezos against SpaceX – the Amazon founder’s Blue Origin is suing NASA, claiming a $2.9 billion lunar lander contract was unfairly awarded to Musk’s SpaceX earlier this year.  

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Elon Musk is taking Amazon’s recent protest with Federal Communications Commission against SpaceX personal, blasting Jeff Bezos, his space rival, on social media

Amazon first announced plans for Kuiper Systems in 2018 and obtained approval from the FCC in July 2020 to build the constellation of 3,236 satellites.

Those satellites would have the ability to serve about 95 percent of the world’s population and successfully position Amazon as a global ISP provider, according to the firm.

However, Kuiper has yet to launch a single device into orbit.

SpaceX, on the other hand, has launched 1,700 Starlink internet satellites into orbit, which are providing broadband to 100,000 paying customers worldwide.

The SpaceX CEO criticized Bezos in a tweet on Friday, saying it ‘turns out Besos [sic] retired in order to purse a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX.’ Amazon filed a protest with the FCC on Wednesday to block SpaceX from launching another batch of its Starlink satellites

The network is delivery downloads speeds from 50Mbps to 150Mbps, with some customers experiencing even higher speeds, PC Magazine reports.  

However, the Musk-owned company is looking to improve coverage and petitioned the FCC for approval to operate a second-generation Starlink network of nearly 30,000 satellites.

SpaceX reworked the plan earlier this month with a new request to include two configurations for the Starlink devices – which Amazon is protesting.

The FCC filing states that SpaceX is not clear about its new plans are, which goes against FCC’s rules on applying for satellite deployments.

However, SpaceX’s filing states it plans to use one configuration when crating the satellite constellation, with the second acting as a backup.

Amazon is still urging the FCC to dismiss the request, stating that relaxing rules encourages not only SpaceX, but other companies to seek clearance for ‘speculative’ applications that try to lock in access for various satellite configurations.

‘Other prospective licensees will surely see the benefit in maximizing their optionality by describing multiple configurations in their license applications,’ Shuman wrote. 

‘The Commission must guard against this outcome by insisting that SpaceX adhere to the well settled framework under Part 25—namely, that licensees submit an application for a single system.’

SpaceX reworked the plan earlier this month with a new request to include two configurations for the Starlink devices – which Amazon is protesting. The FCC filing states that SpaceX is not clear about its new plans are, which goes against FCC’s rules on applying for satellite deployments 

Amazon is still urging the FCC to dismiss the request, stating that relaxing rules encourages not only SpaceX, but other companies to seek clearance for ‘speculative’ applications that try to lock in access for various satellite configurations

Musk’s tweet suggests he has had enough of Bezos’ protests, specifically the Amazon’s founders lawsuit against NASA that has halted production of the SpaceX lunar lander.

Bezos filed a lawsuit against the American space agency on August 16 that ‘challenges NASA´s unlawful and improper evaluation of proposals.’

Blue Origin was originally in competition with SpaceX and a third firm, Dynetics, for what was expected to be two NASA contracts. 

After Congress trimmed the space agency’s budget, NASA announced in April 2021 that SpaceX’s Human Landing System (HLS) would be the sole contractor.

THE BILLIONAIRE SPACE RACE: HOW BRANSON, MUSK AND BEZOS ARE VYING FOR GALACTIC SUPREMACY

Jeff Bezos in front of Blue Origin’s space capsule

Dubbed the ‘NewSpace’ set, Jeff Bezos, Sir Richard Branson and Elon Musk all say they were inspired by the first moon landing in 1969, when the US beat the Soviet Union in the space race, and there is no doubt how much it would mean to each of them to win the ‘new space race’.

Amazon founder Bezos had looked set to be the first of the three to fly to space, having announced plans to launch aboard his space company Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on July 20. 

The billionaire mogul will travel with his younger brother Mark, a charity auction winner who’s shelling out $28 million and pioneering female astronaut Wally Funk, 82.

However, Branson has now announced he’s planning to make a suborbital flight nine days before Bezos and his brother. He revealed on Twitter that he plans to be Astronaut 001 on Virgin Galactic’s July 11 test flight.

Although SpaceX and Tesla founder Musk has said he wants to go into space, and even ‘die on Mars’, he has not said when he might blast into orbit. 

SpaceX appears to be leading the way in the broader billionaire space race with numerous launches carrying NASA equipment to the ISS and partnerships to send tourists to space by 2021.  

On February 6 2018, SpaceX sent rocket towards the orbit of Mars, 140 million miles away, with Musk’s own red Tesla roadster attached. 

Elon Musk with his Dragon Crew capsule

NASA has already selected two astronauts who will be on-board the first manned Dragon mission. 

SpaceX has also started sending batches of 60 satellites into space to help form its Starlink network. 

Musk hopes this will provide an interconnected web of satellites around Earth which will beam down free internet to people worldwide.  

Branson and Virgin Galactic are taking a different approach to conquering space. It has repeatedly, and successfully, conducted test flights of the Virgin Galactic’s Unity space plane. 

The first took place in December 2018 and the latest on May 22, with the flight accelerating to more than 2,000 miles per hour (Mach 2.7). 

More than 600 affluent customers to date, including celebrities Brad Pitt and Katy Perry, have reserved a $250,000 (£200,000) seat on one of Virgin’s space trips. 

Branson has previously said he expects Elon Musk to win the race to Mars with his private rocket firm SpaceX. 

Richard Branson with the Virgin Galactic craft

SpaceShipTwo can carry six passengers and two pilots. Each passenger gets the same seating position with two large windows – one to the side and one overhead.

The space ship is 60ft long with a 90inch diameter cabin allowing maximum room for the astronauts to float in zero gravity.

It climbs to 50,000ft before the rocket engine ignites. SpaceShipTwo separates from its carrier craft, White Knight II, once it has passed the 50-mile mark.

Passengers become ‘astronauts’ when they reach the Karman line, the boundary of Earth’s atmosphere.

The spaceship will then make a suborbital journey with approximately six minutes of weightlessness, with the entire flight lasting approximately 1.5 hours.

Bezos revealed in April 2017 that he finances Blue Origin with around $1 billion (£720 million) of Amazon stock each year.

The system consists of a pressurised crew capsule atop a reusable ‘New Shepard’ booster rocket.   

Bezos is one of the richest men in the world and Blue Origin has successfully flown the New Shepard rocket 15 times.

At its peak, the capsule reached 65 miles (104 kilometres), just above the official threshold for space and landed vertically seven minutes after liftoff.  

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