Amazon’s Project Kuiper Launches To Challenge Musk’s Starlink

Amazon has begun its mission to challenge Elon Musk’s Starlink and Eutelsat’s OneWeb, with the first launch of Project Kuiper internet satellites.

In an update Amazon announced that “on Monday, April 28, ULA successfully launched our KA-01 mission into space. Our team has already established contact with all 27 satellites, and initial deployment and activation sequences are proceeding nominally. We’ll have subsequent updates to share as the mission unfolds.”

Amazon had originally slated the first launch of 27 Project Kuiper satellites for 9 April at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, but the launch was pushed back after “stubborn” cloud cover and heavy winds had forced a delay. Until this week.

Project Kuiper

“The inaugural launch of Amazon’s Project Kuiper used a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket to deliver the first satellites of the constellation into low Earth orbit (LEO). Project Kuiper is Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite broadband network, ”announced ULA’s “Kuiper 1” mission page.

“Its mission is to provide fast, reliable internet to customers around the world, including those in unserved and underserved communities, using a constellation of more than 3,200 LEO satellites.”

The launch comes after the UK communications regulator Ofcom in February had “granted an earth station network licence to Amazon Kuiper Services Europe SARL for its non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite system, which is also known as ‘Kuiper’”.

United Launch Alliance is a joint venture from Boeing-Lockheed Martin, which since 2006 has been offering launch services for other firms.

Amazon said the KA-01 mission delivered the first 27 Project Kuiper satellites to an altitude of 280 miles (450 kilometres) above the Earth.

They are the first satellites of the 3,236 that Amazon plans to send into low-Earth orbit.

Project Kuiper will deliver high-speed, low-latency internet to virtually any location on the planet, and it expects to begin delivering service to customers later this year.

Upgraded satellites

In October 2023 Amazon’s Project Kuiper had launched two prototype satellites (known as Kuipersat-1 and Kuipersat-2) on the first flight of United Launch Alliance’s then new Vulcan Centaur rocket.

But the satellites for the KA-01 mission have been described as a significant upgrade from the two prototype satellites it successfully tested during the Protoflight mission in October 2023.

Amazon said it had improved the performance of every system and sub-system on board, including phased array antennas, processors, solar arrays, propulsion systems, and optical inter-satellite links. In addition, the satellites are coated in a dielectric mirror film unique to Kuiper that scatters reflected sunlight to help make them less visible to ground-based astronomers.

Amazon previously said that following the KA-01 mission, it will continue to increase its production, processing, and deployment rates as it prepares to begin delivering service to customers.

Amazon said it has already begun shipping and processing satellites for the next mission: KA-02 will also use a ULA Atlas V rocket and launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Amazon is racing to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink which already has 7,200 satellites already up in the air.

Eutelsat’s OneWeb is also a European-based competitor with over 648 satellites.