Amazon’s Project Kuiper initiative is slowly filling the skies with small satellites as it seeks to take on SpaceX’s internet-from-space Starlink service.
Project Kuiper still has a long way to go to catch up with Starlink, which has some 8,000 small satellites in low-Earth orbit, though it doesn’t need that many to be able to launch its initial internet service.
On Thursday morning, Amazon launched another 27 of its Project Kuiper satellites in the KA-03 mission from Cape Canaveral in Florida using an Atlas V rocket operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA). You can watch the rocket blasting off the launchpad in the video below.
3,2,1…liftoff! ULA’s Atlas V rocket powers off the launch pad carrying the next Amazon satellites for the Project Kuiper broadband constellation and the future of global connectivity!https://t.co/aAPPJAhIns pic.twitter.com/C2JagAwNCi
Amazon says Project Kuiper is aiming to deliver “fast, reliable internet to customers and communities around the world.”
Kuiper is on track to serve five markets — the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, and Germany — by the end of the first quarter of next year, Project Kuiper executive Ricky Freeman said recently, adding that the timeline is a little slower than originally planned.
The company sent its first batch of satellites skyward in April 2025. Its initial constellation will include more than 3,200 satellites deployed in around 80 missions that should be completed by 2029.
To deploy the satellites, Amazon has inked deals with a number of spaceflight companies, including not only ULA but also ArianeGroup, Blue Origin, and even SpaceX, spending more than $10 billion in launch contracts.
Customers who sign up to the Project Kuiper internet service will be asked to choose one of three kinds of user terminals: a compact 7-inch square model for portability (offering up to 100 Mbps), a standard 11-inch model for households (up to 400 Mbps), and a larger model for enterprises (up to 1 Gbps).
Amazon will likely sell its standard customer terminal for about $400, which would make it about $50 more expensive than Starlink’s terminal for residential customers.
It’s also eyeing business customers and recently announced a deal with airline JetBlue to provide Wi-Fi services for passengers.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.