A Falcon 9 rocket launches a Starlink mission on January 31, 2023 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
SpaceX
Amazon bought three rocket launches from SpaceX for its Project Kuiper web satellites, the tech giant announced on Friday.
The move is a surprise from Amazon, given the corporate’s Kuiper system goals to compete with Elon Musk’s Starlink within the satellite broadband market. Each Starlink and Kuiper represent multibillion-dollar efforts to create networks with 1000’s of satellites in orbit to serve customers starting from consumers to governments.
Amazon previously made a blockbuster order for launches from three of SpaceX’s top rocket rivals, including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin — a choice which got here under scrutiny in a shareholder lawsuit against Amazon earlier this 12 months that alleged Bezos’ rivalry with fellow billionaire Musk led to snubbing SpaceX.
While Bezos founded each Amazon and Blue Origin, the businesses are separate entities.
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SpaceX, probably the most lively rocket operator on this planet, has been adamant that it’ll proceed launching Starlink competitors on its rockets. The corporate previously launched quite a lot of other firms’ broadband satellites to orbit and signed deals for future launches as well.
In Friday’s announcement, Amazon said it signed with SpaceX for 3 Falcon 9 launches in mid-2025. Financial terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed.
The SpaceX deal marks the newest shift in Amazon’s strategy as the corporate pushes to get Kuiper to space in time to fulfill federal regulations. Federal Communications Commission rules require that Amazon deploy half of its planned 3,236 satellites in orbit by July 2026.
Amazon has orders for greater than 77 launches from Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance, Arianespace and ABL. But delays in the event of those rockets have led Amazon to alter launch plans before: The corporate twice switched the rocket that its first pair of Kuiper prototypes would fly on, in an effort to expedite development, before the mission launched in October.
The Kuiper prototypes accomplished testing successfully, Amazon announced last month, with the corporate pushing to start manufacturing business satellites for launches next 12 months.
Amazon expects to invest upwards of $10 billion to construct Kuiper. Earlier this 12 months the corporate broke ground on a $120 million pre-launch processing facility in Florida.
