Amazon announced on Tuesday that it will launch its first internet satellites into orbit in the first half of 2024 and conduct early commercial testing shortly after.
The company is getting ready to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and other providers for the right to deliver broadband internet globally.
Later this year, Project Kuiper, an Amazon subsidiary that develops satellite internet, will start mass-producing the satellites, the firm announced. Those are the first of more than 3,000 satellites that the internet giant aims to put into low-Earth orbit over the following few years.
The 2024 deployment goal would put Amazon on schedule to meet a legal need to launch half of its 3,236-satellite Kuiper network by 2026. Limp, who is in charge of Amazon’s consumer products division, said the firm intends to produce “three to five” satellites daily to meet that objective.
Amazon intends to use a new rocket from the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance to launch two test satellites early this year. It is anticipated that the 2024 launch, which carried the first batch of manufactured satellites, will be the first of many in a quick deployment campaign utilizing rockets Amazon bought in 2021 and 2022.