- Amazon wants to launch 3,236 satellites that stream the Internet in an effort called the Kuiper Project, which would directly compete with SpaceX’s growing fleet of Starlink spacecraft.
- Despite the heated competition, Amazon managed to defeat opposition from its competitors and obtain approval from the US Federal Communications Commission to deploy Kuiper in space.
- SpaceX’s Starlink project appears to be years ahead of Amazon’s Kuiper as it launched hundreds of satellites and started a beta testing program for consumers.
- However, Amazon has promised to invest “more than $ 10 billion” to realize Kuiper and cover the Earth with affordable web access.
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Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezos in 1995, has just achieved a major victory by obtaining regulatory approval to create Kuiper, a planned fleet or constellation of 3,236 satellites that transmit the Internet.
If carried out, Kuiper would compete with Starlink, a similar but potentially much larger fleet of 12,000 to 42,000 satellites, many times the number of spacecraft humanity has ever launched, formed by SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by Elon Musk.
On Wednesday, the five FCC commissioners voted unanimously to allow Amazon to launch its Kuiper fleet into space and communicate with ground antennas, giving the project the documentation it needs to take off.
“We conclude that granting the Kuiper application would increase the public interest by authorizing a system designed to increase the availability of high-speed broadband service to consumers, the government, and businesses,” the FCC wrote in its order, published. July 30th.
In a subsequent Amazon announcement Thursday, the company pledged to invest “more than $ 10 billion” in its effort to provide “affordable and reliable broadband service to underserved and underserved communities around the world.”
“A project of this scale requires significant effort and resources and, due to the nature of [low-Earth orbit] Constellations is not the kind of initiative that can start small. You have to commit, “Amazon said.
Incidentally, that amount is precisely what SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell estimated in May 2018 as the cash it can take to complete Starlink.
A heated competition to dominate space-based internet
In his Starlink descriptions to reporters in May 2019, Elon Musk has said that SpaceX attempts to claim only 1-3% of a global telecom business of about $ 1 trillion a year. He also said the project could generate SpaceX between $ 30 billion and $ 50 billion a year, about 10 times more than what it takes to launch rockets. (This has led some analysts to value the company at more than $ 100 billion.)
The same market access and capture is likely true for Amazon, which has sparked heated regulatory battles with SpaceX and other companies, at one point even causing Musk to call Bezos a copycat. However, with Amazon’s growing and lucrative digital entertainment divisions, bringing affordable high-speed Internet to populated and remote areas represents expanding your customer base and results.
However, like SpaceX, Amazon had to go through the FCC first.
The federal regulator is in charge of dividing wireless spectrum and assigning permission to use certain frequencies for specific purposes, in the case of Kuiper, Starlink, OneWeb, and other planned providers, moving web data to and from space to cover America (and other parts of the world) in high-speed, low-delay broadband. Amazon applied for the FCC’s permit in 2019, engaging the company in heated competition with similar providers.
Now, with FCC clearance, Amazon can launch its planned satellites, which would circle the planet at altitudes ranging from 367 miles (590 kilometers) to 391 miles (630 kilometers), a region called low Earth orbit ( LEO) or even very low Earth Orbit (VLEO). These distances are more than 50 times closer than traditional geostationary satellites on the Internet, allowing them to transfer data to spaces similar to fiber optics.
The FCC order states that Amazon plans to launch Kuiper in five phases and that its nonexistent Internet service is supposed to be activated after 578 satellites.
It is still unclear how large those satellites will be, what they will look like, and what rocket or rockets will launch them into orbit. But Bezos in 2000 founded an aerospace company called Blue Origin that is working to, as SpaceX did successfully, develop reusable rockets. Blue Origin’s next planned heavy-load rocket is called New Glenn, and it may have the potential to deploy dozens or hundreds of satellites at once.
SpaceX, meanwhile, appears to be potentially ahead of Amazon as it has deployed more than 500 Starlink satellites, built user terminals and ground stations, and even launched a private beta that could lead to the first public service later this year. year.
An illustration of the Blue Origin reusable New Glenn rocket launching into space.
Blue origin
The FCC order did not grant everything Amazon wanted, but the company emphasized its importance by announcing its massive planned investment in the scheme.
“We’ve heard so many stories lately about people who can’t do their jobs or complete school work because they don’t have reliable Internet at home,” Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president who previously developed his Kindle product and is now overseeing Kuiper. “There are still too many places where broadband access is unreliable or does not exist at all. Kuiper will change that. Our $ 10 billion investment will create jobs and infrastructure in the United States that will help us close this gap.”
In addition to its goals of offering the internet to home consumers, schools, businesses, emergency personnel, medical facilities, Amazon said it also plans to “provide backhaul solutions for wireless operators that extend LTE and 5G service to new regions” to hinder the Internet – to reach areas by other means.
Late last year, Amazon revealed plans to open a giant factory to develop, test, and build Kuiper satellites in Redmond, Washington.
The clock is ticking for Amazon to run. The FCC requires that 50% of its satellites be operational before July 30, 2026, and that the rest of its fleet is launched before July 30, 2029, or the company could lose its permission to operate the network.
The government’s decision only obliquely addressed the threat and growing impact of low-flying satellite fleets to astronomy, and especially radio astronomers. In its decision, the FCC noted that avoiding such an interruption “is not a condition” for its authorization, but that Amazon “should be aware of these facts” and work with the National Science Foundation to mitigate the problems.
