Amazon plans to launch its first Kuiper internet satellites by 2024
Amazon.com aims to launch its first internet satellites into space in the first half of 2024, followed by early commercial testing. The firm made the announcement on Tuesday, as it prepared to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and others to deliver worldwide broadband internet. According to the business, Amazon’s satellite internet branch, Project Kuiper, will begin mass-producing the satellites later this year. They are the first of over 3,000 satellites that the technological giant intends to put into low-Earth orbit over the next few years.
During a conference in Washington, Dave Limp, senior vice president of Amazon devices, stated that they will definitely be beta testing with commercial clients in 2024. The 2024 deployment deadline would leave Amazon on schedule to meet a legal need to launch half of planned total network of 3,236 satellites by 2026. Limp stated that the corporation intends to build “three to five” satellites every day to meet that target.
Amazon is borrowing from its consumer electronics playbook to produce millions of terminals needed to link users to its Kuiper satellites, with plans to invest more than $10 billion in the Kuiper network. The business believes that its experience in manufacturing millions of gadgets will play a crucial role in competing with SpaceX’s Starlink network, which already has over 4,000 satellites in orbit.
Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX’s head of Starlink enterprise sales, stated that the company’s own consumer Starlink terminals, priced at $599 each, have been used by “over a million customers to date.” Amazon’s “standard customer terminal,” 11-inch square antennae for the Kuiper network, will cost the company less than $400 each to produce and will provide customers with internet speeds of 400 megabits per second, the company mentioned. Amazon’s “most cheap” network terminal will be a smaller, square-shaped mobile antenna measuring 7 inches broad and weighing one pound, though the firm did not disclose the pricing.
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