Amazon.com has said that the prototype satellites for its Project Kuiper internet venture are operating normally after their first week in orbit. The two satellites were drawing power from their solar panels and communicating consistently with Amazon’s terminal on the ground, the company said in a statement Monday. “We’re already learning a lot from this mission that will inform further improvements to our production systems, and the team should be very proud of this milestone,” Rajeev Badyal, the Amazon vice president who leads the Kuiper team, said in the statement.
Amazon launched its two satellites on a United Launch Alliance LLC rocket on October 6 from Florida and about five hours later reported it had established contact with them. The company hopes to eventually put some 3,326 satellites into low Earth orbit and use them to beam broadband internet service to the ground below. The launch live stream hosted by the United Launch Alliance, the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture, ended shortly after the rocket’s liftoff without showing the deployment of the satellites. Amazon Kuiper rivals Starlink, a unit of Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
The next phase of Amazon’s current mission will reportedly focus on the system’s data network, including testing links to the internet and customer terminal antennas.
What is Project Kuiper
Project Kuiper is Amazon’s initiative to provide fast, affordable broadband to communities around the world that are currently unserved or underserved by traditional internet and communications options. Project Kuiper is not a part of Blue Origin, which is a separate company founded by Jeff Bezos. It is an Amazon initiative, part of the same Devices and Services division responsible for Kindle, Echo, Fire TV, eero, Ring, and other tech devices.
(With agency inputs)