Amazon has signed a contract with Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX to launch satellites for its Project Kuiper. The online store and tech company wants to set up a network of thousands of satellites to offer internet services on Earth, but will now partly rely on its main rival. SpaceX has already launched about 5,000 satellites into space for its own Starlink to also provide internet.
Amazon already launched the first two satellites for Project Kuiper earlier this year, but that should have been done much earlier. The group’s satellite program has been significantly delayed by a series of test failures and other technical issues at its launch partners, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
An older Atlas V rocket from Boeing and Lockheed Martin was ultimately used for the first launch. But it is not feasible to get all more than 3,000 planned Project Kuiper satellites into space in this way. Earlier this year, a major shareholder also complained that Amazon should have considered using the reliable SpaceX rockets for its launches.
Amazon is now going to do the latter. The contract covers three launches with so-called Falcon 9 rockets, the first of which is expected to take place in mid-2025. It is not known how much money is involved in the deal between Amazon and SpaceX.
The name Project Kuiper is a reference to the Kuiper Belt. This is a belt of billions of rocks and ice blocks that orbit the sun beyond the planet Neptune. That belt is named after the Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who described in 1951 that the belt should exist. His point could be proven in the early 1990s.
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2023-12-02 15:09:45
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