Amazon’s Kuiper is ready for liftoff

• The low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite sector is hot right now
• Elon Musk’s Starlink in particular has made great strides over the past year
• Now Amazon’s $10bn Project Kuiper is ready to put its first broadband communications satellites into orbit   

Amazon is all set to join the low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications party with the launch of its first full batch of Project Kuiper ‘birds’ into orbit on 9 April, a move  that marks “an important step in its mission to deliver fast, reliable internet to customers and communities around the world”.

The news is just the latest in a flurry of communications satellite announcements that are increasing in cadence as the competition heats up between big name players desperate to dominate the non-terrestrial networks (NTN) sector. 

The LEO market, in particular, has witnessed a dramatic uptick in investment in the past five or so years as companies such as Starlink (part of Elon Musk’s SpaceX business), OneWeb (now part of Eutelsat), AST SpaceMobile, Lynk Global, Skylo, Omnispace, Amazon and more have spotted an opportunity to deliver broadband, internet of things (IoT), direct-to-cell and other connectivity services from space. 

Amazon first unveiled Project Kuiper in 2019 and then announced a $10bn investment in 2020, when the plan to put more than 3,200 satellites into orbit received approval from US regulator the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Project Kuiper has been designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency connectivity to “virtually any location on the planet”.

Now, at last, it’s ready for liftoff, albeit later than planned (it had previously aimed to launch its first satellites during the second half of 2024). The Kuiper team has unveiled plans for its KA-01 (Kuiper Atlas 1) mission, which will launch on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and deploy 27 satellites at an altitude of 280 miles (450 kilometers) above Earth. The launch is scheduled for no earlier than 12 noon eastern time on 9 April, but the timing will be dependent on conditions.

If all goes well, Amazon’s LEO constellation will start providing services to customers later this year: Current service partners include Verizon, NTT Docomo and Vodafone – see Vodafone eyes prime role for Amazon’s LEO constellation.

In total, the tech giant has secured more than 80 launch slots to deploy a total of 3,236 satellites, almost half of which (1,168) need to be launched and in service by 30 July 2027, while the remaining spacecrafts must be in operation by 20 July 2029, as per the FCC’s rules. Over the next few years, Kuiper and ULA teams will conduct seven more Atlas V launches and 38 launches on ULA’s larger Vulcan Centaur rocket: An additional 30-plus launches are planned in partnership with Kuiper’s other launch providers (Arianespace, Blue Origin, and SpaceX).

“We’ve designed some of the most advanced communications satellites ever built, and every launch is an opportunity to add more capacity and coverage to our network,” stated Rajeev Badyal, VP of Project Kuiper, in this announcement. “We’ve done extensive testing on the ground to prepare for this first mission, but there are some things you can only learn in flight, and this will be the first time we’ve flown our final satellite design and the first time we’ve deployed so many satellites at once. No matter how the mission unfolds, this is just the start of our journey, and we have all the pieces in place to learn and adapt as we prepare to launch again and again over the coming years.”

But Project Kuiper has some catching up to do, especially since Musk’s Starlink, which already provides satellite broadband services in multiple markets around the world, has an satellite-to-smartphone service already up and running with T-Mobile US, and recently struck critical deals with Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel to launch its services in India. 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV