Following recent tests, Amazon is finally ready to launch its Project Kuiper space internet project in a bid to rival Elon Musk’s Starlink, the company announced. The first batch of 27 satellites on the KA-01 (Kuiper Atlas 1) mission are set to launch into low earth orbit (LEO) aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on April 9th next week from Cape Canaveral if conditions allow. Amazon hopes to start offering the high-speed internet service “later this year,” it said.
Amazon’s network will eventually comprise 3,200 satellites launched from partners including ULA, Arianespace, Blue Origin and even SpaceX. Much like that company’s Starlink, Project Kuiper’s service will cover the entire planet when completed. It will work with a dish as small as seven inches that will deliver speeds up to 100Mbps, smaller than Starlink’s Mini, or up to 1Gbps with larger dishes. The company said the cost of terminals will be under $400.
The satellites will cruise at 17,000 mph at 392 miles above earth, circling the planet in about 90 minutes. They’ll use a dialectic mirror film coating that’s supposed to scatter light and make them less visible to ground-based astronomers, Amazon said. SpaceX’s constellation currently uses over 7,000 satellites, so the Project Kuiper and Starlink fleet will use over 10,000 LEO satellites once Amazon’s network is complete.
Amazon launched two test satellites in October 2023 and proclaimed its early tests a success, with the pair sending and retrieving data at speeds of up to 100 gigabits per second. Later in December, it bolstered the network with a network of high-speed laser cross-links that promise further speed boosts. The company claims its mesh network can move data about 30 percent faster than terrestrial fiber optic cables.
Project Kuiper’s first launch will be the heaviest payload yet for the Atlas V, which will fly in its most powerful configuration. The rocket will include five solid rocket boosters in addition to the main booster, and a payload fairing 77 feet high and 16.4 feet wide.
Despite past successful tests, the mission isn’t without risk. “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,” Project Kuiper vice president Rajeev Badyal wrote. “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.”