Amazon Takes First Steps for Satellite Internet

It seems that although Jeff Bezos has resigned as the CEO of Amazon, the rivalry between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk is not over and is moving to the next level. Amazon has a project to provide internet to people from space using small satellites orbiting the Earth, and it’s called Project Kuiper. In this long-running project, the expected permissions were finally obtained in the past months, and then agreements were started to be made.

In April, Amazon signed a multibillion-dollar contract (the largest rocket deal in commercial space industry history) to launch Kuiper satellites with three different rockets: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket, the United States’ United Launch Alliance rocket, and Europe’s ‘s Arianespace rocket. Amazon first announced Project Kuiper back in 2019, but the company’s announcement last month gave new impetus to the event. Amazon’s move is clearly a challenge to Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s Starlink network.

Amazon plans to launch 3,236 microsatellites into space

SpaceX’s Starlink project has approximately 2,000 satellites currently in orbit and serves a total of 250,000 subscribers, and Federal Communications Its commission authorizes SpaceX to launch a total of 12,000 satellites. While Amazon hasn’t launched a single satellite yet, it could still play a big role in the market, as the company plans to launch 3,236 microsatellites into Earth orbit initially as part of Project Kuiper.

Although Amazon first announced and launched ‘Project Kuiper’ back in 2019, the real deal started last month. Amazon signed a multi-billion dollar contract in April 2022 but unfortunately did not provide further details about the project, such as when it will launch.

According to data from the International Telecommunication Union, an estimated 37% of the world’s population still has never used the internet, and 96% of these people live in developing countries. Amazon is joining the list of tech giants, along with Facebook and Google, which are investing in digital infrastructure development to support their core services. What are you thinking? Please do not forget to share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.