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As it battles terrestrial broadband service providers to keep access to the 12GHz spectrum for its Starlink consumer terminals, SpaceX has made an important concession to Kuiper Systems LLC (an Amazon subsidiary) with regards to its third proposed Starlink modification. SpaceX asked the FCC to allow it to change the orbital altitudes, planes and angles of its satellites earlier this year, with the company's promises to its customers depending to a large extent on this change.

Now, in a commitment letter filed by SpaceX's head of satellite policy Mr. David Golman, the company has acquiesced to Amazon's demand of removing the orbital overlap between some Starlink and Kuiper satellites and increasing the distance between them. The letter comes as Amazon raised safety concerns for its satellites in several meetings with the FCC.

SpaceX's Concession To Amazon Hopes To Enable A Polar Starlink Launch In December – But Will It Mark The End Of Company's Battle With Future Competitor?

The concession relates to Starlink's cluster that operates in a shell of 570 kilometers in altitude with 20 satellites each in 36 orbital planes. SpaceX's modification request asked the FCC to allow the company to cut the altitude of this cluster in half from an earlier value of 1,300 kilometers. A part of Amazon's Kuiper constellation will operate at an altitude of 590 kilometers, and SpaceX's orbital tolerance lets the company either reduce or increase Starlink's altitude by 30 kilometers.

This ensured that when the Kuiper constellation was fully deployed (Amazon's 590-kilometer cluster is the last cluster that it will deploy), SpaceX and Amazon's satellites would effectively be sharing the same orbital shell when SpaceX chose to make use of this tolerance. SpaceX's concession will now ensure that the maximum altitude that this batch of satellites operates in is 580 kilometers, a kilometer lower than the low end of the Kuiper cluster's orbital tolerance of 9 kilometers.