American billionaires, as practice shows, are sooner or later drawn to space. In this sense, Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezos, is trying to keep up with Elon Musk and his company Starlink. However, Amazon is lagging behind the original schedule for launching satellites into orbit, and now reports another delay. The first communications satellites of the Kuiper project are scheduled to be launched only in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Fonte da imagem: Amazon
Amazon had originally planned to do this as early as the fourth quarter of 2022, but it was hampered by failures in testing the satellites and problems with the contractors who were going to help launch the communications satellites and deploy the network. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has given Amazon permission to launch 3,326 communications satellites into low Earth orbit, allowing the Kuiper network to compete with Starlink and other similar projects.
As Bloomberg reports, citing statements by Amazon representatives, the company intends to launch the first batch of Kuiper communications satellites not in the first half of the year, as previously planned, but only in the fourth quarter of this year. Opening a satellite manufacturing facility in a suburb of Seattle, Amazon manufacturing chief Steve Metayer explained that the company will begin testing the Kuiper communications network with commercial customers in 2025. If the company manages to launch at least a few hundred satellites into orbit by the end of next year, limited commercial use of this communications network will begin before the end of 2025. Amazon had previously expected that it would be able to begin operating these satellites only in 2025.
In October, it launched two prototype Kuiper satellites into orbit, which will burn up in the atmosphere after decommissioning. The company is also ramping up production of the satellites at a facility in Washington state that will be able to produce five satellites a day.