Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos' feud continues. Not long ago Musk quipped the richest man in the world for being busy suing his space company, SpaceX.
As is known, Bezos' space company, Blue Origin, recently sued NASA for awarding SpaceX a contract to land astronauts on the Moon. As a result of this lawsuit, SpaceX had to postpone the project and NASA's plans to send astronauts to the Moon in 2024 were in danger of being pushed back.
Now it's Amazon's turn, Bezos' e-commerce giant, to attack SpaceX. Amazon this week lodged a protest with the Federal Communications Commissions (FCC) for scrapping SpaceX's plans to fly more satellites for its Starlink satellite internet service.
The Amazon protest caught Musk's attention. Via Twitter, he replied to a tweet about the news with a satire for Bezos.
"Apparently Besos (sic) retired to do a full-time job filing a lawsuit against SpaceX..." Musk said in a tweet, as quoted by The Verge, Sunday (29/8/2021).
The complaint filed by Amazon is not actually a lawsuit but a protest. In its protest, it's not that Amazon doesn't want SpaceX to fly more satellites, but they want SpaceX to explain its plans in more detail.
Currently Starlink internet service is supported by about 1,740 satellites that are in low Earth orbit. SpaceX plans to launch 30,000 second-generation satellites to improve its services, and has notified the FCC where the constellations will be placed in orbit.
But Amazon complained that SpaceX asked the FCC to agree on two different orbital configurations and then choose one. They think this mechanism will make it difficult for other satellite internet operators and SpaceX should choose only one plan.
Amazon itself does have a satellite internet project designed to rival Starlink. But the project, called Kuiper Systems, has yet to launch any satellites into orbit.
"SpaceX's new approach to proposing two different configurations is against the Commission's rules and public policy and we urge the Commission to reject this amendment," said Kuiper Systems Corporate Counsel Mariah Dodson Shuman.
"Therefore, the Commission must enforce its rules, reject the SpaceX Amendment, and invite SpaceX to resubmit the amendments after establishing one configuration for its Gen2 System."