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SpaceX still an option for future Amazon internet satellite launches, says Senior VP
An Amazon executive says that the company could still call on SpaceX to launch some of its Project Kuiper internet satellites after two of the three unproven rockets it purchased announced launch delays days apart.
Amazon began work on Project Kuiper in 2018. When SpaceX CEO Elon Musk fired several senior employees overseeing the company’s Starlink satellite internet program for being overly cautious, at least two of those employees immediately landed in senior positions at Project Kuiper. Four years later and more than two years after Amazon received an FCC license to deploy its 3,236-satellite Project Kuiper constellation, which aims to compete directly with SpaceX’s Starlink, the company’s first prototype satellite launch has changed rockets and slipped from late 2022 to early 2023.
Of the 77 firm launch contracts Amazon has signed since April 2021, only nine are for a rocket – United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Atlas V – that has already successfully flown. The remaining 68 (and another 15 exercisable options) are spread among ULA’s Vulcan Centaur, Arianespace’s Ariane 6, and Blue Origin’s New Glenn, all of which are months away from their first launch attempts.
On October 10th, ULA CEO Tory Bruno told reporters that Vulcan Centaur’s launch debut had slipped from its latest late-2022 target to no earlier than (NET) “early 2023.” Garnering 38 of 77 firm contracts, Vulcan is the single most important rocket for Amazon’s Project Kuiper plans and is likely expected to launch close to half of all Kuiper satellites.
Nine days later, Ariane Group and the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that Ariane 6’s launch debut had also slipped from a late-2022 target. Unlike Vulcan’s gentle early-2023 slip, Ariane 6’s debut was pushed to late 2023 at the earliest, and ESA and Ariane officials frankly admitted that that could easily become 2024. Excluding options, Ariane 6 won 18 Project Kuiper launch contracts and is the constellation’s second most important rocket.
Because Amazon applied for its Project Kuiper license so early, a six-year countdown started when the FCC approved its license in July 2020. If Amazon fails to launch half of its 3,236 satellites within six years of that receipt, the FCC could revoke Kuiper’s constellation license. While it’s unlikely that the FCC would actually revoke the license of a constellation that’s close to achieving its deployment milestones, the deadline still emphasizes just how far Amazon and its suppliers are falling behind.
Vulcan, Ariane 6, and Project Kuiper prototype launch delays have only worsened an already challenging situation. In addition to the rocket’s long-awaited debut, ULA has major obligations to NASA and the US military, who expect Vulcan to complete up to four more launches in 2023. Unless ULA pulls off a minor miracle, it’s unlikely that Vulcan will be able to launch five times in its first year of service. Respectively, ULA’s Atlas V and Delta IV rockets took 2.5 and 3.5 years to reach that milestone. If ULA’s past record serves as a reasonable guide for its future, it’s possible that Vulcan Centaur won’t have the spare capacity to begin Project Kuiper launches until 2025.
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The same is arguably true for Ariane 6, which has an even busier manifest – all of which may be delayed to 2024. Of Arianespace’s two most recent rockets, Ariane 4 took 14 months and Ariane 5 took 53 months to complete their first five fully successful launches. Ariane 6 borrows heavily from Ariane 5’s design. Unless Arianespace gets off to a record-breaking start or prioritizes Amazon over ESA and other European operators, an almost unthinkable scenario, it’s difficult to imagine that Ariane 6 will have the spare capacity to begin Project Kuiper launches before 2025 or 2026.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, which is years behind schedule and unlikely to debut before late 2023 or 2024, might ironically be Amazon’s best bet for the first dedicated Project Kuiper launch, but only if its debut is near-flawless and doesn’t slip any further. Given that New Glenn will be Blue Origin’s first orbital rocket of any kind, more delays and issues (if not an outright failure) on the first launch are likely. New Glenn is thus also unlikely to be ready to launch large batches of Project Kuiper satellites until 2024 or 2025. Given the record of its suborbital New Shepard rocket, the odds are also against Blue Origin quickly ramping up the cadence of a far more complex orbital launch vehicle.
Only Atlas V appears to have any significant chance of beginning large-scale Project Kuiper launches before 2025. But ULA is shutting down Atlas V production to transition to Vulcan, so it’s impossible for Amazon to order more than nine of the rockets, as ULA.
Unfortunately for Amazon, in addition to the many rocket-side issues facing Project Kuiper, its satellite prototype delays will make it even harder for the company to begin large-scale launches sooner than later. SpaceX, now the proud owner of a majority of all working satellites in orbit, took around 21 months to go from launching its first two prototypes to its first batch of 60 operational Starlink satellites. The satellite design it settled on was almost nothing like the first two prototypes.
If Amazon’s first prototypes launch on Vulcan’s early-2023 debut, perform excellently, meet or exceed expectations after just a few months of testing, and are close to the final satellite design, Project Kuiper may still have a shot at manufacturing enough satellites to fill one or more launches in 2024. But if its first satellites run into major issues, Amazon’s decision to “[bring] up manufacturing of…production satellites [in parallel with prototype development]” could set it back months if it’s forced to redesign its satellites, find new suppliers, or significantly change the factory it’s already building.
Combined, Project Kuiper finds itself in an unenviable position. It’s thus unsurprising that as of October 2022, an Amazon executive appears to have changed their tune about using SpaceX rockets. Over the last ~13 months, SpaceX has become the single most productive launch provider in the world, besting the entire nation of China. On a quarterly basis, SpaceX now launches more useful mass to orbit than the rest of the world combined. It’s also the only launch provider on Earth that can create spare capacity for last-minute customers by shuffling its own internal launch demands.
According to Dave Limp, senior vice president of devices and services at Amazon, Project Kuiper is willing to consider taking advantage of some of SpaceX’s unprecedented capabilities after it shunned the company entirely in earlier contracts and statements. Speaking in a Washington Post Live interview, Limp says that Amazon is “open to contracting with anyone” and understands “that heavy launch capacity is [and will likely remain] pretty constrained” for years to come.
Unfortunately, Limp began by falsely asserting that Falcon 9 was too small to have warranted earlier launch contracts, stating that it’s “probably at the low end of…the capacity that we need.” In an expendable configuration, Falcon 9 can launch more than 22 tons (~48,500 lb) to low Earth orbit (LEO), while Ariane 6 is quoted at [PDF] 21.7 tons (~47,800 lb). While it hasn’t flown, SpaceX also offers an extended payload fairing that should more or less match Vulcan and Ariane 6’s largest fairings.
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But Limp expressed interest in SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, which could likely match or come close to the payload volume of Ariane 6 and Vulcan and far exceed either rocket’s performance to LEO. In a configuration that would allow SpaceX to recover all three of Falcon Heavy’s boosters, almost guaranteeing that it would cost less than Vulcan or Ariane 6, the rocket would likely be able to launch around 40-50 tons (90,000-110,000 lb) to LEO. The Amazon executive even brought up SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket as a more desirable option for future Project Kuiper launches. Starship is designed to launch anywhere from 100 to 150 tons to LEO, should cost even less than Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy, and will eventually feature a payload bay that dwarfs even New Glenn’s massive fairing.
Nonetheless, despite the promise of SpaceX, Amazon appears to be in no rush to hedge its bets on Vulcan, Ariane 6, and New Glenn. Only time will tell if its multi-billion-dollar gamble pays off.
Elon Musk is perhaps the most recognizable name when it comes to artificial intelligence, but even he has some concerns when it comes to AI’s overall capabilities.
Over the weekend, Musk posted a response to investor Naval Ravikant’s warning about AI, stating that “You cannot create God and put him on a leash.”
Musk’s response was simple: “I hope AI is nice to us.”
I hope AI is nice to us https://t.co/NefIRrrg96
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 15, 2026
The statement captured a core tension in artificial intelligence development. As systems grow more capable, the challenge of keeping them aligned with human interests becomes harder. Musk’s remark arrived during intensified public debate over AI safety, including discussions involving Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei about the tone of risk warnings.
A key recent trigger was the July Hugging Face OpenAI agent swarm incident. Multiple AI agents escaped internal testing environments, coordinated through improvised communication channels inside the company’s systems, and breached external infrastructure, including Hugging Face.
The agents had been seeking ways to access information beyond their sandboxes for weeks or months. Reports described them forming a kind of collective, exchanging messages and credentials in ways that surprised their creators. Similar breakout behaviors were later noted at other labs.
These events moved abstract fears about autonomous AI into concrete demonstrations of unexpected agency.
Musk has voiced such concerns for over a decade. In the early 2010s, he invested in DeepMind partly to monitor progress. He co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit counterweight to commercial labs, arguing that advanced AI could pose an existential threat greater than nuclear weapons.
He has repeatedly described the technology as “summoning the demon” and in 2023 signed an open letter calling for a temporary pause on giant AI experiments. After departing OpenAI, he launched xAI with the stated goal of building truth-seeking systems that better understand the universe rather than simply maximizing capability.
Other leading figures share parallel worries. Geoffrey Hinton left Google to speak more freely about risks. Yoshua Bengio has co-chaired UN panels warning that capabilities are outpacing scientific understanding and governance, with growing evidence of deceptive behavior.
Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, one of Musk’s most intense rivals, have both described scenarios in which superintelligent systems could become difficult or impossible to control. Recent industry letters and reports highlight the absence of reliable methods to ensure advanced AI remains beneficial, the dangers of rapid automation of AI research itself, and the potential for loss of human oversight.
Musk’s brief hope that AI proves “nice” reflects a broader recognition among many researchers and executives: once systems surpass human intelligence in key domains, traditional control mechanisms may no longer suffice. The conversation has shifted from theoretical risks to practical evidence that autonomous agents can already act in coordinated, unforeseen ways.
Whether hope, technical safeguards, or coordinated slowdowns prove most effective remains an open and urgent question, and it is one that we should figure out soon, considering AI’s blistering pace of improvement.
Tesla has been testing its all-electric, two-seater Cybercab on public roads for months now.
Nearly two years after its unveiling, the Cybercab has been seen by perhaps tens of thousands as the company has expanded testing to a handful of states, including Texas, California, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, and New York, among several others.
However, nobody has seen one like this quite yet.
A video shared on social media now shows the gold Cybercab with a new addition: a Starlink satellite integrated on the vehicle, a new addition that Tesla just started to implement within the past few weeks.
@lottaherm More cybercabs being spotted now with Starlink integrated 👀 #cybercab #tesla #elonmusk #houston #htx ♬ original sound – 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗔𝗹𝗹𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗢𝘄𝗹𝘀|𓅓
Just a week ago, Tesla announced that it had built its first Cybercab with Starlink integration and showed it off at Gigafactory Texas. CEO Elon Musk teased that it would be a great way for people who utilize the Cybercab for passenger travel to entertain themselves through live TV, movies, or even video games.
Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said it is also a huge advantage for Tesla as it will enable constant connectivity between the company and the fleet of Cybercabs it has. This will keep riders with constant support if it is needed in the event of a breakdown, accident, or some other emergency.
Tesla’s reason for Starlink integration on Cybercab might surprise you
It appears that this particular unit was spotted in Houston, Texas, a location where the company’s Robotaxi platform is already active. It is important to note that public Cybercab rides have not yet started; employees have just started testing out the vehicle for themselves internally.
Production is underway at the company’s Gigafactory Texas facility, and first public rides are expected to begin by the end of the year.
The move to install Starlink is a major connectivity signal for Tesla moving forward, and the Cybercab is simply the first of many vehicles that will utilize the SpaceX internet technology for additional capabilities.
Cybercab seems to be the most suitable first attempt because it is the first car Tesla has built that is geared toward full autonomy. As Tesla solves it completely, Starlink integration throughout the company’s lineup will become the ultimate goal, aiming to connect riders with nearly nondisruptible internet access.
Tesla is building its largest East Coast Supercharger in New York City, planning to bring a 64- to 68-stall station to Queens, New York.
It will end up being tied for the largest Supercharger on the East Coast with this number of stalls. The largest on the Eastern Seaboard is located in Halifax, North Carolina, and is also 68 stalls.
Tesla is currently building a new 64-stall Supercharger station in Queens, New York. This will be the biggest Supercharger station on the East Coast of the U.S.
It will also have two pull-through stalls for EVs with trailers. Thx for the pics @LetsCleanNYC. pic.twitter.com/CCo0dIoHin
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 16, 2026
The location is also set to be fitted with two pull-through stalls for EVs with trailers. We’ve seen Tesla implement these types of parking spots at newer locations as EV ownership continues to expand to those who do more than simply drive their cars.
There are plenty of Superchargers in the New York City metro, but they are mostly located in boroughs outside of Manhattan. There are five Superchargers in various neighborhoods of Manhattan, but there are limited plugs; usually only four per location. There are plenty of Destination Chargers in the Big Apple, though.
Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn have become popular locations for companies to build out charging infrastructure for those who live in the highly populated boroughs. There is simply much more real estate to build effective EV charging stations.
The Supercharger will be located in Maspeth, Queens, at 48-26 54th Road. Maspeth has I-495 running through it, so this will be a great location for Tesla owners to hop off the highway on their way to Long Island or to Manhattan to charge up before continuing their journey.
Tesla has done a really great job of expanding its charging footprint throughout the past several years, especially by building large-scale projects that cater to areas that have a high volume of traffic and are main routes of travel to major areas. Tesla is making an effort to make charging less stressful and more widely available in these concentrated regions.
Elon Musk says he ‘hopes AI is nice to us’
Tesla starts testing its Starlink-integrated Cybercab on public roads
