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Amazon has secured deals to launch up to 83 rockets carrying its internet satellites into low Earth orbit, in what is believed to be the largest such procurement in the history of the space industry.
The agreements with Arianespace, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin will be sufficient to launch the majority of its initial constellation of 3,236 satellites, Amazon said.
They will provide the backbone to Project Kuiper, Amazon's high-speed broadband network aimed at consumers, business, government agencies and others. It seeks to compete with Elon Musk's Starlink, which has launched more than 2,000 satellites and boasts download speeds of up to 200 megabits per second.
Amazon did not disclose any specific financial details of the agreements, nor a timeline for launches, but said it was “investing billions of dollars across the three contracts”. One Amazon executive told the Financial Times that the company would invest “no less than $10 billion [€9.025 billion]” in the total constellation.
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Project Kuiper has a deadline from the US communications regulator to have at least half of its satellites in low Earth orbit by July 2026. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022
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