Amazon intends to compete with SpaceX and other companies by launching its first internet satellites in 2024.
Later this year, Project Kuiper, Amazon’s satellite internet division, will start mass-producing the satellites.
As it gets ready to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and other providers for the right to provide internet service globally, Amazon.com announced Tuesday that it will launch its first broadband satellites into orbit in the first half of 2024 and begin conducting initial commercial testing soon after.
Later this year, the satellites will start being mass-produced by Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite internet division. Those are the first of more than 3,000 satellites that the tech giant aims to put into low-Earth orbit over the following few years.
In 2024, we’ll unquestionably be beta testing with business clients, said David Limp, senior vice president of Amazon devices, at a conference in Washington.
The 2024 deployment goal would place Amazon on track to meet a legal need to launch half of its 3,236-satellite Kuiper network by 2026. Limp, who is in charge of Amazon’s consumer devices division, said the firm intends to produce “3 to 5” satellites daily to meet that objective.
With plans to invest more than $10 billion (approximately Rs. 82,400 crore) in the Kuiper network, Amazon sees its expertise in creating millions of devices from its consumer electronics behemoth as a competitive advantage over rival SpaceX, the Musk-owned space business whose Starlink network has roughly 4,000 satellites in orbit already.
Amazon intends to use a fresh rocket from the United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed partnership, to launch two prototype satellites early this year. The first of many launches utilizing rockets Amazon bought in 2021 and 2022, carrying the first batch of manufacturing satellites, is anticipated to occur in 2024.
The business on Tuesday also presented a slate of three distinct antennas, or terminals, that will connect clients with its Kuiper spacecraft in orbit.
The cost to create and supply 400 megabits per second internet speeds for users will be less than $400 (approximately Rs. 33,000) per “typical customer terminal,” according to a statement from Amazon.
More than a million consumers have used SpaceX’s consumer Starlink terminals, which cost $599 (approximately Rs. 49,400) each, as well as various custom terminals for corporations and governments, according to Jonathan Hofeller, head of Starlink enterprise sales at SpaceX.
Amazon’s “most cheap” network terminal will be a smaller, square-shaped mobile antenna that is 7 inches wide and weighs one pound; the business did not provide a price.
With internet rates of up to 1 gigabit per second, Amazon’s largest, “most capable” antenna type, “built for enterprise, government, and telecommunications applications,” will measure 19 by 30 inches and take about 30 seconds to download a high-definition feature-length movie.
