The billionaire battle between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk is ready to enter a new arena: satellite internet.
Amazon, the company started by Mr. Bezos as an online bookstore three decades ago, is now a Behemoth Merchandising, owner of the franchise James Bond, seller of electronic gadgets such as Echo Smart Speakers and one of the strongest providers of Cloud Computing.
So it may not be surprising that Amazon is now starting the first thousand satellites known as project Kuiper to provide another option to stay connected to the modern world. The high -speed internet radiation market on the ground by the track is currently dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX Rocket Company, which takes advantage of a similar service, Starlink. Starlink, with thousands of satellites in orbit and started more every week, already serves many millions of customers around the world.
On Monday, the first 27 satellites of the company are sent in space. Their trip to their final orbits continues.
Amazon had no immediate comment after the launch. It will take many hours, if not days, for the company to assign and create contact with all 27 satellites and know if they are operational.
When the launch and how can I watch it?
The satellite got up on Monday at 7:01 pm East time from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. They were transported by an Atlas V, a rocket made by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
The spacecraft will later develop the Kuiper satellites in a circular orbit at 280 miles above the surface. The satellite propulsion system will gradually increase this trajectory to an altitude of 393 miles.
What is Kuiper project?
The Kuiper Project will be a constellation of the internet satellites aimed at providing high speed data connections to almost every part of the earth. Doing this will successfully require thousands of satellites and Amazon’s goal is to operate more than 3,200 in the coming years.
The company will compete with SpaceX’s Starlink, a service that was originally released mainly on home customers.
While Kuiper is also aimed at this market, especially in remote areas, it will also be integrated into Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing offer, which is popular with large companies and governments around the world. This can make it more attractive to businesses that include satellite images or weather forecasts that not only have to transfer large amounts of data across the internet, but also perform calculations on the data.
Ground stations will connect Kuiper satellites to the Web Services Infrastructure in a way that could also allow companies to communicate with their own remote equipment. For example, Amazon suggested that energy companies could use Kuiper to monitor and control remote wind farms or offshore drilling platforms.
In October 2023, two original Kuiper satellites began to test technology. Amazon said the tests were successful. These prototypes were never meant to serve in the operational constellation, and after seven months it was back in the atmosphere where they burned. The company said it has been informed since then the plans of “every system and subsystem on the boat”.
“There is a big difference between the launch of two satellites and the launch of 3,000 satellites,” said Rajeev Badyal, an Amazon executive responsible for Kuiper, in an advertising video before launching.
When will Amazon provide to provide internet services from space?
Amazon told the Federal Communications Committee in 2020 that the service would start after developing the first 578 satellites. The company said it expects to connect customers to the internet later this year.
While a fully functional constellation needs thousands of satellites, the company can provide services in specific areas with much less orbit before expanding to more global coverage later.
FCC’s approval for the constellation came with the demand that at least half of the satellites had to grow by July 30, 2026. Industry analysts say the company could get an extension if it has proven significant progress by then.
Taking satellites on track also depends on the rocket launches that occur according to the timetable, which can be a problem if there are not enough rockets. Amazon must also build hundreds of ground stations to relay users to users.
Is the space very full for both SpaceX and Amazon?
In 2000, there were less than 1,000 satellites in the Earth’s orbit.
Today, SpaceX is exploiting only more than 7,000 Starlink satellites and hopes to increase this total to 42,000.
Other major changes, including project Kuiper, could multiply the number of satellites in the area called low -earth trajectory several times and would require careful trajectory control to avoid the collision between them or with other debris on low trajectory.
But satellites such as Kuiper and Starlink do not stay on a low orbit of land indefinitely. At the end of their lives, they are deliberately removed from the orbit to burn in the atmosphere. Even if they fail completely, the air resistance will only pull them to their destruction within a few years so that they do not add to the long -term clutter of the space.
Which other rockets will start the kuiper in Orbit?
In April 2022, Amazon announced that it was buying up to 83 kuiper satellite launches in a series of rockets. Some would fly to the new Glenn, a powerful, massive rocket made by Jeff Bezos’s Spaceflight company Blue Origin. Others will get up in a Vulcan, a new rocket from United Launch Alliance. Other lots will travel to Ariane 6 from Arianespace, a European missile company.
These three vehicles are new and have only started a handful of times.
In December 2023, Amazon also bought three Falcon 9 launches for 2025 from SpaceX, its immediate competitor for Kuiper. The decision was made months after a retirement fund sued the Amazon, saying that the company’s board of directors had acted with bad faith in the organization of almost all Kuiper launches in the unprotected rockets, ignoring Falcon 9, which is the dominant rocket.
