A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the Kuiper gear was due to blast off from Cape Canaveral on 9 April, but bad weather grounded it. The launch provider confirmed the holdup, blaming Florida which seems logical.
The Bezos empire wants more than 3,200 satellites in low Earth orbit, beaming broadband to every blasted corner of the planet – from warzones to hurricane hellholes. Having Ofcom’s nod means Kuiper’s sights are set on the UK, where it’ll clash with Starlink in a market already starved for decent rural coverage.
GSMA Intelligence head of research and consulting Tim Hatt said, “It’s important symbolically to show Amazon has a foot in the game now with satellites in orbit.”
He added, “It shows a more broad-based competition across the satellite space now that you have many companies operating in low-Earth orbit.”
Project Kuiper’s kit has evolved since Amazon’s first two prototypes launched last October. The upcoming batch is armed with pizza box-sized antennas the firm claims can be banged out for less than $500 a pop – cheap enough to win some fans if they perform.
Bezos poached former Starlink engineers—reportedly fired by Musk for insubordination—to get things going. While Kuiper got going in 2019, a year behind Starlink, Amazon is banking on its massive web services and scaled-up consumer hardware to steal a march.
SpaceX has already launched more than 7,000 satellites and serves more than five million users in 125 countries, including military and intelligence networks. Starlink has become a lifeline in Ukraine, with hospitals and frontline units relying on it for basic operations.
Kuiper wants that action, and according to the press release, it can deliver “High-speed, low-latency internet to virtually any location on the planet,” which is the pitch, delivered via hardware orbiting at 17,000 mph some 630 km above Earth: every 90 minutes, one full orbit.
Mobile operators are sniffing around these networks, too.
“Ground-based coverage can only get so far before the economics become very challenging to reach 100 per cent coverage,” Hatt said.
“So satellite is seen as a pragmatic way to extend that... and both the operators and satellite partners can participate in the monetisation.”
While V2 mini-satellites from SpaceX keep pouring out of Vandenberg, other players are circling. China’s GuoWang is targeting 13,000 satellites, Rivada in Germany is gunning for 600, Canada’s Telesat plans 300, and the EU’s Iris has 170 on deck. Even the US military’s Space Development Agency is plotting 300–500 more.
Eutelsat Group executive committee member Joanna Darlington said, “It’s only been going for three years. So we’re really at the very beginning of that. And I expect you will see more sophisticated technology being embarked on those satellites.”
