Amazon’s first Mission Kuiper check satellites are headed to area on October sixth

Amazon will launch two Mission Kuiper check satellites into area on Friday, October sixth. The pair of satellites — dubbed KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2 — will shoot into area aboard the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Atlas V rocket as a part of Amazon’s web satellite tv for pc initiative.

The launch will take from the House Launch Complicated 41 on the Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station in Florida, with the two-hour launch window opening at 2PM ET. Based on the Mission Kuiper group, the Atlas V rocket will deploy the 2 satellites at an altitude of 311 miles, the place they’ll enter low-earth orbit.

From there, the Mission Kuiper group will carry out numerous assessments to ascertain first contact with the satellites, in addition to deploy photo voltaic arrays to generate energy. As soon as the satellite tv for pc system is related to the web, the group will try to ship data between the satellites and a buyer terminal right here on Earth. Amazon says it’ll “actively deorbit” the satellites on the finish of the mission, letting them expend within the Earth’s environment.

“We’ve carried out in depth testing right here in our lab and have a excessive diploma of confidence in our satellite tv for pc design, however there’s no substitute for on-orbit testing,” Rajeev Badyal, Mission Kuiper’s vice chairman of know-how, says in a press release. “That is Amazon’s first time placing satellites into area, and we’re going to study an unimaginable quantity no matter how the mission unfolds.”

Regardless of this setback, Amazon says its first manufacturing satellites may nonetheless launch within the first half of 2024, with beta testing beginning on the finish of 2024. The corporate finally goals to have a constellation of over 3,200 in low Earth orbit, placing it on a path to compete with Elon Musk’s Starlink, which at the moment has over 4,000 satellites in area.