Amazon is getting ready to go to space.
Amazon announced Monday that the first two prototype satellites from Project Kuiper, the e-commerce giant internet from space venture, will launch in the fourth quarter of 2022. This will formally launch its competition with SpaceX, Elon Musk space company, and One Web, among others, for beaming high-speed internet connections to customers from low Earth orbit. It will also serve as a vital design test for the satellites before the company launches thousands more into orbit.
Amazon first stated its intention to launch a constellation of 3,236 satellites into low Earth orbit in 2019. This was Jeff Bezos second venture into space. He is the founder and former CEO of Amazon as well as the owner of Blue Origin, a rocket company. A few other companies are also racing to provide high-speed internet to governments, other businesses, and consumers whose access is hampered by the digital divide in remote locations.
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Amazon, like SpaceX, intends to invest $10 billion in the project, which will be housed within its devices division. However, the company has taken longer to get off the ground than SpaceX, whose Falcon 9 rockets have lofted nearly 2,000 internet beaming satellites into orbit for its own venture, Starlink. Thousands of customers are testing the SpaceX service, which costs $99 per month and includes a $499 antenna kit.
🆕: The first two satellites for Project Kuiper will launch next fall. This is a big step toward our mission of providing fast, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world. https://t.co/LIo7Aj2DSw pic.twitter.com/qmRR7LFyIe
— Amazon News (@amazonnews) November 1, 2021
Amazon unveiled a customer antenna concept in 2020 and has spent years testing prototype satellites on the ground.
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"You can test everything you want in your labs, which we do — we have spent a lot of money, unfortunately, to build infrastructure to test these things," said Rajeev Badyal, an Amazon vice president in charge of the Kuiper project. "However, the ultimate test will take place in space."
The companies are competing fiercely, and their plans have piqued the interest of investors and analysts, who predict tens of billions of dollars in revenue once the constellations are fully operational. However, those plans have been criticised by space safety advocates who are concerned about satellite collisions adding to pollution in orbit; astronomers whose ground-based telescope observations of the night sky could be disrupted by the satellites; and dark skies advocates who are concerned about light pollution from sunlight reflecting off the constellations.
The Federal Communications Commission, which governs satellite communications to the ground, approved Amazon network in 2020 and set a deadline for the company to launch half of its 3,236 satellites by mid-2026. In a deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Amazon purchased nine launches from the rocket company United Launch Alliance.
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But, according to Badyal, Amazon has been in talks with other launch companies, including SpaceX, whose rapid Starlink deployment is due in part to its ability to use its own reusable rocket boosters for launches.
The first two prototype satellites, KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2, will launch separately on rockets built by ABL Space Systems, one of a handful of startups developing smaller launch vehicles to meet the needs of satellite companies. The market for smaller rockets designed to deliver payloads to space quickly and affordably is crowded, so ABL Amazon contract — good for up to five launches on ABL RS1 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida — is a significant boost for the company.
"The selection process was long, arduous, and difficult; it was many days of popping the hood and seeing what underneath," said ABL CEO Harry O'Hanley. "I'd say they went as deep, if not deeper, than any company we've ever seen."
In Amazon Kuiper programme, a pair of Amazon prototype satellites will test internet connections between space and the company flat, square antennas for consumers on the ground for the first time. Parts of South America, the Asia-Pacific region, and central Texas will be tested. Previous experiments included flying drones equipped with satellite hardware over ground antennas and connecting ground antennas to other companies' satellites already in orbit, resulting in internet speeds fast enough to stream high-definition video.
Employees working on Kuiper, like those in other parts of Amazon device business, are under pressure to keep costs low as they finalise the company consumer antenna. According to Badyal, the company is considering a variety of pricing options, ranging from charging customers for the antenna and all of the wires that come with it to a "extreme" case in which it gives the antenna to customers for free.
"We're hyper focused on lowering costs so that customers' total cost of ownership is low," he said, adding that engineers have updated the antenna design since Amazon revealed it last year. "When building satellites, you don't necessarily count pennies, but when building a customer terminal, we count pennies and sub pennies."
The penny counting comes from Amazon devices unit, where it has produced consumer electronics such as Alexa smart speakers and Fire sticks for streaming TV.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy cited the Kuiper project as an example of the company efforts to innovate despite its massive size at a conference last month. He stated that Amazon required "blind faith" in order to figure out the complex new technology. "You have to make sure in the way that you're thinking about operating it, and what the customer experience is going to be, that customers will adopt it and find it easy enough and appealing to use," he added.