Amazon plans $120M satellite processing site for internet from space
Nastco
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) plans to build a $120M satellite-processing facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for its Kuiper internet satellites, Reuters reported, citing state officials and the company.
The plant, whose construction began in January, will be used to prepare Kuiper satellites before they are sent into orbit.
The e-commerce giant and plans to complete the construction by late 2024, and aims to ship its first batch of satellites to the site for processing in H2 2025, the report added citing Steve Metayer, Amazon's vice president of Kuiper Production Operations.
That target date will start the clock for Amazon to deploy half of the network into the orbit by 2026, as required by U.S. regulators. Amazon had secured 77 heavy-lift rocket launch contracts, potentially worth billions of dollars combined, mostly from the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance and Jeff Bezos's space company Blue Origin, according to the report.
The company intends to launch its first few prototype satellites into space by the end of 2023, followed by launches of its first mass-produced satellites in 2024.
The Kuiper internet network is expected to potentially compete with Starlink, from Elon Musk's SpaceX (SPACE).
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