Amazon to launch first Kuiper production satellites
Amazon is set to launch its first batch of production satellites next week for broadband from space.
The Project Kuiper launch on April 9th will see 27 of Amazon’s second generation satellites launched into Low Earth Orbit.
The launch on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket will be the largest payload on that platform and the start of a deployment of up to 3200 satellites. Amazon plans 80 launches, each with dozens of satellites, on both the Atlas launcher and Ariane 6 as well as Blue Origin, which is owned by Amazon-owner Jeff Bezos.
These production satellites are upgraded from the two prototypes tested in orbit back in 2023. The processors and phased array antennas have been upgraded, with new optical links between the satellites. These infrared lasers maintain 100 Gbit/s bandwidth over a distance of nearly 621 miles (1000 km).
“With optical inter-satellite links across our satellite constellation, Project Kuiper will effectively operate as a mesh network in space,” said Rajeev Badyal, Project Kuiper’s vice president of technology. “This system is designed fully in-house to optimize for speed, cost, and reliability, and the entire architecture has worked flawlessly from the very start. These immediate results are only possible because we approached our OISL architecture as one part of a fully integrated system design, and it’s a testament to this team’s willingness to invent on behalf of customers. We’re excited to be able to support these next-generation OISL capabilities on every Kuiper satellite from day one.”
To tackle the issue of visibility from the ground that has plagued the competing Starlink constellation frorm Elon Musk‘s SpaceX, the Kuiper satellites are coated in a unique dielectric mirror film that scatters reflected sunlight to help make them less visible.
“We’ve designed some of the most advanced communications satellites ever built, and every launch is an opportunity to add more capacity and coverage to our network,” said Rajeev Badyal, vice president of Project Kuiper.
“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. 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.”
The LEO satellite constellation links to customer terminals powered by an Amazon-designed baseband chip, developed under the code name “Prometheus.” Prometheus combines the processing power of a 5G modem chip with the capability of a cellular base station to handle traffic from thousands of customers at once, and the ability of a microwave backhaul antenna to support point-to-point connections.
Once deployed from the dispenser provided by Beyond Gravity in Switzerland, the satellites will begin a series of mostly automated steps to activate onboard systems and use an electric propulsion systems to gradually ascend to the assigned orbit of 392 miles (630 km).
Amazon is ramping up production of the satellites at its plant in Kirkland, Washington, to produce five satellites a day and has begun shipping and processing satellites for the next mission, also on a ULA Atlas V rocket.
www.aboutamazon.com/what-we-do/devices-services/project-kuiper
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