Amazon’s Kuiper promises 400 mb/s downloads
July 25, 2023
The Amazon-funded Project Kuiper mega-constellation of more than 3,000 low Earth orbiting broadband satellites, is promising download speeds of up to 400 Mb/s, significantly ahead of SpaceX’s Starlinks. Amazon has earmarked some $10 billion (€9.24bn) for the scheme.
Most Starlink users report download speeds of around 100-150 Mb/s. There is no quoted certainty, but users are expecting these download speeds to rise as SpaceX increases the number of satellites in orbit.
However, there are no Kuiper craft yet in orbit. Two test satellites have been in climate controlled storage since March at Cape Canaveral waiting for a suitable launch rocket to become available.
The original plan was to launch the pair on board on an upcoming test launch of the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) new Vulcan rocket (a replacement for the aging Atlas V and Delta IV rockets). The rocket was initially expected to launch in May 2023, but is not now expected to happen until satisfactory testing of the Vulcan rocket’s Centaur upper stage (it suffered a hydrogen leak and explosion on a test firing earlier this year).
One option for the Kuiper project is to switch rockets and to revert to the older Atlas V rocket and reportedly the ULA has a couple of these in production.
Meanwhile Kuiper’s satellite production is running at about four units per day, or 20 per week.
Kuiper has already issued the largest-ever rocket order for launching the 3,236 satellites in the manifest. It has rockets booked from Arianespace (35-40 satellites per launch), ULA (45 per launch) and its own Blue Origin New Glenn (61 per launch) system.
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