For almost three years, Amazon has laid the foundation for ‘Project Kuiper,’ the company’s efforts to build a constellation of low-energy orbit satellites that will turn on internet access throughout the world. Like SpaceX’s Starlink, Amazon intends to use the Kuiper Project to bring fast and reliable internet access to people who live in remote locations. While SpaceX has jumped over Amazon with its satellite internet service available in 29 countries, Amazon, Tuesday, announced it has signed a launch of the pact with three companies to supply and launch rockets to carry kuiper satellites.
The company which is part of the agreement includes major players in the Satellite Vehicle Industry – European launch provider Arianespace, Biru Biru Jeff Bezos, and the United Launch Alliance based in U.S. The contract imagines these companies will conduct 83 new launches in the next five years to achieve Amazon’s goal to inject all 3,236 Kuiper satellite belts to low-earth orbit.
From what is known so far, ArianSpace will do 18 launches for Amazon using the new Ariane 6 rocket. BlueRigin will be responsible for 12 launches using Rocket Glenn. With 38 proposed launches, the success of the United Launch Alliance and Vulcan rocket will be very important for the Kuiper Project. Previously, Amazon bought nine Atlas v Rockets from the United Launch Alliance.
Amazon claims that this agreement is the largest commercial procurement of launch vehicles in history. However, because Amazon intends to have all 3,000-plus satellites and runs only at the end of five years, we can safely assume that it will be briefly before Amazon actually began launching the Satellite Internet brand itself.
Because the Kuiper Project will compete with SpaceX’s Starlink several years down, it is proven why Amazon is not approaching SpaceX for the requirements of the launch vehicle. However, experts, quickly noted that a series of spacex rocket which was proven to make a better choice for the Kuiper Project by expanse of imagination.
Regardless of the Amazon fee significantly fewer money, the level of success will also be much higher, given that Falcon 9 Spacex has been in business for a long time now. Doing worse things for Amazon is the fact that no rocket chosen for the mission has proven themselves in the flight so far. Glenn – Blue-made rocket – is still a good two years of his first commercial launch. As for Ariane 6, this rocket is usually an average of six to nine launches every year. However, with the Vehicle Soyuz Russia has the potential to be available for future supply flights to ISS, there is a possibility of NASA seeing Ariane 6 as a potential substitute. It is not clear how ArianSpace intends to fulfill this massive surge in demand in the coming months.
Given what we know about the Amazon plan for 2022, where only two dummy satellite launches are proposed, it is unlikely that the Kuiper Project will submit a real threat to Starlink’s dominance at least for the next few years.