Project Kuiper: Satellite Internet from Amazon gets launch date

Amazon has now announced the launch of its own satellite Internet. Project Kuiper is scheduled for launch at the beginning of 2023. Will Starlink have serious competition here?

Project Kuiper: Amazon takes off

It is now clear when Amazon plans to send the satellites for its Project Kuiper into orbit. In early 2023, the competition for Starlink, the best-known and most successful satellite Internet to date, will be launched. The online shipping giant has now publicly announced this. With this, Amazon has to admit to a slight delay. After all, the satellites were originally supposed to take off towards space at the end of 2022. According to the big tech company, the first two satellites, Kuipersat-1 and -2, are to be completed this year. They will then be sent into space next year with the help of a Vulcan rocket.

Starlink is probably the best example of how important satellite Internet can be. The World Wide Web, which is transmitted from orbit, is ideally suited for military purposes thanks to its comprehensive protection against interference. Thus, in the context of the Ukraine war, Starlink quite quickly began to supply the country attacked by Russia with Internet. But it is not only in war that the benefits are felt. Other exceptional situations such as environmental disasters are also best thought of as areas of use.

Is the race to catch up now beginning?

Back in the summer of 2020, Amazon received a commitment from the Federal Communications Commission to build an extensive satellite Internet. The goal of Project Kuiper is to send a total of 3,236 satellites into orbit. The satellites will then orbit the earth in different orbits.  The satellites flying furthest from the earth are to have a flight altitude of 630 km. The lowest-flying satellites, in turn, are to be at an altitude of 590 km.

The sheer mass of satellites is what could make Amazon’s Project Kuiper a real competitor to Starlink, launched by Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX. But Starlink still has a significant head start. After all, there are already 3,100 satellites for SpaceX’s Internet in space. By the time Amazon has launched all of its satellites for Project Kuiper, Starlink is likely to be a significant step ahead.