Earlier this year, Jeff Bezos posted a photo of a tortoise on the social platform X without any caption. But aerospace industry enthusiasts immediately understood the meaning: The Amazon founder was the more steady, if slightly slower, competitor in the two-man race to space.
The Blue Origin New Glenn rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on NASA's Mars Ionosphere and Plasma Exploration Mission (EscaPADE).
And that “rabbit” is undoubtedly Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX. For many years, SpaceX has been significantly ahead of Bezos' companies in rocket development, satellite design, and expanding the scope of human space exploration.
This week, Bezos aims to achieve a comeback. Amazon has finalized an $11 billion deal to acquire satellite operator Globalstar and signed a partnership agreement with Apple to bolster its nascent satellite internet business. At the same time, Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin is preparing for the next launch of the heavy-lift rocket "New Glenn". This mission will carry a commercial payload for the first time.
In NASA’s subsequent Artemis moon landing program, Blue Origin also sees opportunities to catch up with or even surpass SpaceX. The company plans to launch a cargo spacecraft to the lunar surface this year. This lander will provide technical verification of its design plan to quickly return astronauts to the lunar surface.
Competition in the field of launch
There is no doubt that SpaceX is far ahead of Blue Origin in the field of rocket development and launch. With its main model "Falcon 9" rocket, SpaceX's launch frequency far exceeds that of other competitors in the United States and around the world, and it occupies an unparalleled dominant position in the launch service market.
Blue Origin, founded by Bezos in 2000, has a more rigorous and orderly development approach. SpaceX has iteratively improved the system over the years by repeatedly launching, rocket explosions, and launching again, while Blue Origin is focusing on the development of the "New Glenn" rocket, striving to achieve success on the first launch.
Last year, the "New Glenn" rocket finally took off, and its overall performance met the standard: the upper stage of the rocket successfully entered orbit, completing the core goal of this flight, but the booster failed to be recycled and reused. The launch mission in November of the same year made further progress, not only deploying two Mars exploration satellites for NASA, but also successfully recovering the booster.
"New Glenn" will be launched again as soon as this Friday. This mission will carry a satellite developed by AST Space Mobile Company in Texas, helping Blue Origin gradually digest the backlog of orders that have been backlogged for many years. Last week, a hardware explosion occurred at a Blue Origin test facility in Florida, but the company said the incident did not affect launch plans.
SpaceX, founded in 2002, is fully promoting the development of the next-generation heavy-lift rocket "Starship", which Musk regards as the core of the company's deep space exploration plan. After multiple test launches last year that included failed explosions and successful breakthroughs, SpaceX plans to launch a new version of Starship in May after multiple delays.
Space satellite layout
SpaceX's frequent "Falcon 9" launch missions have allowed approximately 10,000 Starlink satellites to cover low-Earth orbit, providing broadband network services to remote areas and war-torn areas. Thousands more satellites will be launched in the next few years, and SpaceX is developing a satellite network that can provide direct connection to satellite services for mobile phones.
On Tuesday, Amazon reached an agreement to acquire satellite operator Globalstar for approximately US$11 billion, a move that will significantly enhance its competitiveness in the direct-to-mobile satellite business. Globalstar has its own satellite constellation, which allows Apple iPhone users to send text messages, call emergency rescue and seek roadside assistance services in areas not covered by traditional cellular networks.
After Bezos steps down as Amazon CEO and becomes executive chairman in 2021, the company is working on building a broadband network consisting of more than 7,000 satellites, a project that is still in its early stages. Although SpaceX has a significant lead in the scale of home users and enterprise customers, Amazon plans to deeply integrate its satellite business called "Leo" with its powerful cloud computing service Amazon Cloud Technology (AWS).
B． Mike Crawford, an analyst at Riley Securities, said the deal "highlights the scarcity value of spectrum resources, both for terrestrial communications and satellite communications."
In addition, Blue Origin also plans to build a satellite constellation called "TeraWave", consisting of 5,400 satellites, mainly serving enterprises, data centers and government customers.
Moon landing program competition
This month’s NASA Artemis 2 mission was a complete success, raising market expectations for the planned manned lunar mission in 2028. The pressure is on SpaceX and Blue Origin, both companies developing lunar landers for NASA's follow-up Artemis mission.
Blue Origin has recently adjusted its resource allocation, suspended its suborbital space tourism business, and focused entirely on lunar landing projects; while SpaceX, which has focused on Mars exploration for many years, has also shifted its personnel and energy to the lunar field.
NASA plans to test lunar landers from one or both companies in mid-2027. The Artemis 3 mission will send astronauts into low-Earth orbit and test the rendezvous and docking capabilities of NASA's Orion spacecraft with SpaceX or Blue Origin lander (or both).
Space Data Center Competition
Both SpaceX and Blue Origin are optimistic about the broad prospects of orbital data centers and hope to use solar energy to meet the huge energy consumption needs of such facilities.
This idea is still basically in the experimental stage, but the two companies have accelerated their layout: SpaceX plans to use upgraded Starlink satellites to carry artificial intelligence computing tasks. The company has applied for regulatory permission and plans to launch up to 1 million satellites equipped with data centers; Blue Origin submitted an application last month and plans to deploy nearly 52,000 satellites carrying artificial intelligence computing payloads.
Musk's vision goes even further. He once dreamed of building a moon base on the X platform to build artificial intelligence satellites and send them into space.