Amazon to Ramp Up Manufacturing of Project Kuiper Satellites

Amazon is preparing to churn out hundreds of satellites for Project Kuiper, the company’s rival to SpaceX’s Starlink internet service.   

On Thursday, Amazon announced(Opens in a new window) it plans on opening a new 172,000-square-foot production facility in Kirkland, Washington, to ramp up manufacturing of Project Kuiper satellites.

“The new facility will create more than 200 highly skilled aerospace and manufacturing jobs in the Puget Sound region and provide the scale required to build as many as four satellites per day,” the company added. 

(Credit: Amazon)

Amazon already has a 219,000-square-foot facility for Project Kuiper in Redmond, Washington, that’s devoted to research and development. But the company needs more room to scale up production for Project Kuiper, which entails operating thousands of satellites in Earth’s orbit to beam high-speed internet to customers on the ground. 

The FCC has granted Amazon a license to operate 3,236 Project Kuiper satellites. But the company must deploy at least 50% of the constellation by July 2026 and then the remaining satellites by 2029 to maintain the authorization. So the clock is ticking for Amazon to get Project Kuiper up and running.

In Thursday’s announcement, Amazon noted: “Project Kuiper satellites have been designed and developed in-house to maximize performance while reducing costs, and our manufacturing facility will give us additional control over the production and testing process.”

The company also plans on finishing the first prototype Project Kuiper satellites before the end of the year. The prototypes, Kuipersat-1 and Kuipersat-2, are then scheduled to launch through United Launch Alliance’s upcoming Vulcan Centaur rocket early next year. 

In addition to the prototype launches, Amazon says it’s secured up to 92 heavy-lift launches from Arianespace, Blue Origin, and ULA to help it deploy the Project Kuiper satellites on a far wider scale. But for now, Amazon remains mum on when these launches will happen or when Project Kuiper service will begin accepting customers.

The company has to make up ground against SpaceX’s Starlink, which is already operating over 3,000 satellites and serving more than 700,000 subscribers across the globe. Amazon has previously said its early prototypes of the customer terminals for Project Kuiper can deliver speeds of up to 400Mbps.