Amazon chose SpaceX to launch Starlink rival Kuiper satellites

Amazon today announced it will launch three space missions with SpaceX for its Kuiper satellite broadband deployment into low Earth orbit.

The latest announcement came as Amazon is looking for the futuristic satellite internet services market that is currently dominated by SpaceX’s Starlink constellation.

Amazon said that the missions with SpaceX are for additional deployments and the company has already formed a partnership with Arianespace, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance (ULA) for up to 83 launches.

With these commercial rocket companies, including Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, Amazon is looking to place 2,236 satellites into Earth’s orbit. Compared to this, SpaceX is currently operating over 5,500 mass-produced satellites around Earth as of November 2023.

Aside from these, the additional Kuiper missions via SpaceX’s Falcon 9 will launch in mid-2025.

“The additional launches with SpaceX offer even more capacity to support our deployment schedule,” wrote Amazon in a press release.

In terms of the testing phase, Amazon has launched two prototype satellite missions in the past and confirmed that it’s ready to move on to the next phase for the deployment of a larger fleet.

For that, the largest e-commerce company is looking for full-scale deployment beginning in the first half of next year, and consumer-based pilot projects in the second of 2024.

SpaceX CEO:

While reacting to this news, Elon Musk, Founder and CEO of SpaceX wrote on X social media site that his space rocket company will “treat them as well as we treat our satellite launches. Fair & square”.

It’s expected that Kuiper could be a major threat to Starlink’s dominance in the satellite internet market. However, Musk stated that he would like to have more players in the space industry and make it more accessible.