SpaceX has filed a formal complaint with the United States Federal Communications Commission accusing Amazon and its launch partner Arianespace of placing Project Kuiper satellites into unauthorised orbital altitudes, creating what the company describes as serious and unmitigable collision risks for dozens of active spacecraft. The letter, sent to the Federal Communications Commission on April 1, marks a significant escalation in the ongoing rivalry between the two companies as Amazon works to build out its Kuiper broadband satellite network in direct competition with SpaceX’s Starlink constellation.
At the centre of the dispute is a February 12, 2026 launch conducted using an Ariane 6 rocket, during which SpaceX claims the Kuiper satellites were deployed 50 to 90 kilometres higher than the altitude approved under Amazon’s existing licence. According to SpaceX’s filing, the insertion altitude chosen for the launch placed the satellites into heavily populated regions of low Earth orbit, directly in the operational zones of thousands of active satellites. SpaceX stated that its own Starlink satellites were forced to carry out 30 emergency avoidance manoeuvres in the hours immediately following the launch to prevent collisions with the newly deployed Kuiper hardware. The filing further alleged that Amazon had conducted eight separate launches into orbits above 450 kilometres without obtaining regulatory approval for the altitude change, despite having previously committed to the Federal Communications Commission that its satellites would be deployed near 400 kilometres. SpaceX also claimed that Amazon and Arianespace failed to provide accurate tracking data to allow other operators to move their satellites out of harm’s way in a timely manner.
David Goldman, Vice President of Satellite Policy at SpaceX, stated in the letter that Amazon and its launch partner had acted with full knowledge that thousands of satellites were already operating at those altitudes, and that their decision to unilaterally raise insertion altitudes without authorisation needlessly and significantly increased risk to other operational systems and inhabited spacecraft. SpaceX is now formally requesting the Federal Communications Commission to compel Amazon to comply with its original licence terms before any irreparable harm can occur to other operators in low Earth orbit. While the two companies have clashed over space safety issues on previous occasions, the directness and severity of this filing underscores how intensely contested the commercial satellite internet market has become as Amazon accelerates its effort to challenge Starlink’s established global network.
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