**Amazon’s Project Kuiper, the space-based broadband service that will compete with Elon Musk’s Starlink, is planning to launch its first batch of satellites next week.**
The project, which has been in development since 2019, has been approved to deploy a constellation of 3,236 satellites into low-Earth orbit by the US Federal Communications Commission, although it has only launched two prototype satellites to date.
Next week, a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket will take off from a Florida launchpad to deploy 27 satellites at an altitude of 450km above Earth. The satellite payload will be the heaviest that the Atlas V rocket has ever flown.
Amazon said that once the full constellation is in orbit, Project Kuiper will deliver high-speed, low-latency internet to virtually any location on the planet. It has so far secured more than 80 launches to deploy the initial constellation, with each one adding dozens of new satellites to the network.
“We’ve designed some of the most advanced communications satellites ever built, and every launch is an opportunity to add more capacity and coverage to our network,” said Rajeev Badyal, vice-president of Project Kuiper.
“We’ve done extensive testing on the ground to prepare for this first mission, but there are some things you can only learn in flight. This will be the first time we’ve flown our final satellite design and the first time we’ve deployed so many satellites at once.
“No matter how the mission unfolds, this is just the start of our journey, and we have all the pieces in place to learn and adapt as we prepare to launch again and again over the coming years.”
The satellites launching next week have been upgraded from the two prototype satellites that were deployed in October 2023. Amazon said it had improved the performance “of every system and sub-system on board”, which includes the phased array antennas, processors, solar arrays, propulsion systems and optical inter-satellite links.
In addition, they are coated in a dielectric mirror film that scatters reflected sunlight to help make them less visible to ground-based astronomers.
In September, astronomers expressed concern that radio telescopes [could be practically “blinded”](https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/09/20/starlinks-new-satellites-have-been-blinding-radio-telescopes-study-reveals) by unintended radio waves emitted from Starlink’s growing constellation. The firm currently has 7,000 satellites in orbit.
Over the next few years, teams from Kuiper and ULA will conduct seven more Atlas V launches and 38 launches on ULA’s larger Vulcan Centaur rocket. An additional 30-plus launches are planned across other providers including Arianespace, SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ own Blue Origin.
Project Kuiper said its initial objective for next week’s mission is to deploy all of the satellites safely in orbit and ensure they can independently manoeuvre and communicate with the team on the ground.
Once they have separated from the rocket, they will begin a series of mostly automated steps to activate onboard systems and use their electric propulsion systems to gradually ascend to their assigned orbit of 630km. The satellites will travel at a speed of more than 27,000kmph while in orbit and circle the planet approximately every 90 minutes.
In November, the European Commission confirmed which space firms [had been contracted](https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/11/01/eu-confirms-which-space-firms-will-build-its-satellite-network-secure-broadband) to build its satellite broadband service, which will be used to support governmental applications including border and maritime surveillance, connection and protection of key infrastructures, as well as security and defence. However, the EU’s constellation will have a much smaller userbase as it is not being targeted at consumers.