Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites in bid to take on Starlink

New Glen is their orbital rocket but it is not ready yet. Hopefully it will be ready for some of the launches, but it must hurt owning a rocket company and having to use another companies to launch your satellites.

From the project web page

"Project Kuiper has secured 80 launches from Arianespace, Blue Origin, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance, and we have options for additional launches with Blue Origin, providing enough capacity to deploy the majority of our satellite constellation. The agreements comprise the largest commercial procurement of launch capacity in history, and support thousands of suppliers and highly skilled jobs across the U.S. and Europe."

Re: Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites in bid to take on Starlink

#7

Post by eminence32 » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 11:30 PM UTC

jpm_sd wrote: post #3

WalterSobchak wrote: post #2

That's a really interesting name. How would you pronounce it?

KY-per https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Kuiper

> /ˈkaɪpər/

Wikipedia has long included IPA pronunciation info for pages about people and other things, which is hyperlinked to a handy guide. But I recently discovered something useful and not entirely obvious:

If you over your mouse over each letter in the IPA pronunciation, you'll get a tooltip describing the sound of that specific letter.

Re: Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites in bid to take on Starlink

#8

Post by lupusreal » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 11:30 PM UTC

wnevets wrote: post #5

[flagged]

Tired of these ignorant gripes from people who think they know better than the entire space industry because they ingested some popsci trash on reddit or youtube. If you actually knew anything you would know that LEO constellations are far less risky than the old school method of putting communication satellites in high orbits like GEO (where any accident means orbital debris which will effectively never decay.)

Re: Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites in bid to take on Starlink

#9

Post by lupusreal » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 11:33 PM UTC

deedubaya wrote: post #4

Why are these going up on ULA rockets and not Blue Origin?

They need to launch fast with as many launchers as they can, due to their looming FCC deadline. The more they launch, the better their odds for getting an extension to their deadline as more launches demonstrates their seriousness.

They're even going to launch on Falcon 9 (albeit after a shareholder lawsuit..)

Re: Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites in bid to take on Starlink

#10

Post by wnevets » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 11:38 PM UTC

lupusreal wrote: post #8

wnevets wrote: post #5

[flagged]

Tired of these ignorant gripes from people who think they know better than the entire space industry because they ingested some popsci trash on reddit or youtube. If you actually knew anything you would know that LEO constellations are far less risky than the old school method of putting communication satellites in high orbits like GEO (where any accident means orbital debris which will effectively never decay.)

[flagged]