Amazon has secured deals to launch up to 83 rockets carrying its internet satellites into low earth orbit, in what is believed to be the largest such procurement in the history of the space industry, Report informs referring to the Financial Times.
The agreements with Arianespace, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin will be sufficient to launch the majority of its initial constellation of 3,236 satellites, Amazon said.
They will provide the backbone to Project Kuiper, Amazon’s high-speed broadband network aimed at consumers, business, government agencies and others. It seeks to compete with Elon Musk’s Starlink, which has launched more than 2,000 satellites and boasts download speeds of up to 200 megabits per second.
Amazon did not disclose any specific financial details of the agreements, nor a timeline for launches, but said it was “investing billions of dollars across the three contracts”. One Amazon executive told the Financial Times that the company would invest “no less than $10bn” in the total constellation.
The deal with ULA, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, is the largest signed with Amazon. It committed to 38 launches on Vulcan Centaur, its newest heavy-lift launch vehicle. The agreement also includes investments in on-the-ground infrastructure at Cape Canaveral. Amazon had previously commissioned nine launches using ULA’s Atlas rocket.
Blue Origin, the space company founded and backed financially by Jeff Bezos, has secured 12 Project Kuiper launches on its rocket, New Glenn, with options for up to 15 more. New Glenn, which had been first scheduled to launch in 2020, has been repeatedly delayed, and its first launch will not take place until 2023 at the earliest.