Amazon has a bold plan to adopt SpaceX’s Starlink internet service, but there is a lot of planning work that needs to be done before it can begin commercial operations.
Like Starlink, Amazon’s Project Kuiper will be powered by several thousand small satellites in an Earth-Earth orbit designed to provide high-speed, low-cost broadband to underserved and underserved populations around the world.
Reaching its goal, the company recently announced this it will sell for $120 million in the satellite manufacturing facility at Space Florida’s Launch and Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center.
The 100,000-square-foot facility will process and integrate satellites with a United Launch Alliance (ULA) or Blue Origin rocket in the final step before blasting off from the launch pad near Cape Canaveral.
“We have a big plan to launch the full launch of Project Kuiper with the first customer pilot next year, and this new facility will play a critical role in helping us meet that timeline,” said Steve Metayer, vice president of Kuiper Production Operations.
Metayer added: “We look forward to adding additional talent to our talented operations and production team. These employees will play an important role in our mission to connect millions of customers around the world.”
Amazon said it plans to launch two satellites in the coming months to test its network and subsystems.
The company will also begin manufacturing satellites at a facility in Kirkland, Washington, later this year. Once built, the satellites will be shipped to Amazon’s new satellite manufacturing facility in Florida for final preparations for launch. The center will have a 100-foot-tall cleanroom that can receive payloads for new heavy-lift rockets such as Blue Origin’s New Glenn and ULA’s Vulcan Centaur.
In March, Amazon unveiled the terminals which Project Kuiper clients will use to connect to the Internet. Amazon said at the time that it wanted a design that offered a “smaller, cheaper, and more capable product” than SpaceX’s Starlink, although prices for hardware and services were not disclosed.
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