Seattle-based Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) has lined up 77 launches to deploy its constellation of 3,236 telecommunications satellites, and the first two are scheduled for Dec. 30 and 31, according to spacelaunchschedule.com.
Amazon calls this the “largest commercial procurement of launch vehicles in history,” though the technicality of the size of that procurement obscures a pertinent detail. Starlink, the SpaceX constellation that Amazon’s Project Kuiper will compete with, already has deployed more than 4,600 satellites with more to come and hasn’t had to procure launch vehicles because it has its own. SpaceX has been using its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets to deploy its satellites.
Still, the procurement is good for Central Florida, since two of the contracted companies launch here.
The Project Kuiper launches will happen aboard Arianespace, United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin rockets, with all the United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin launches happening out of Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, according to Project Kuiper Senior PR Manager Brecke Boyd. Of the 77, 18 are contracted to Arianespace, departing from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.
The economic impact of each launch has positive ripple effects throughout the region, responsible for jobs, contracts and services directly linked to the launches. On top of that, a 2020 study by Florida Tech economics professor Mike Slotkin and published by Florida's Space Coast Tourism Journal showed that when it comes to Brevard County tourism, each launch comes with $2.42 million in economic impact thanks to crowds of launch watchers as many as 95,000 deep. Slotkin’s analysis of a 2019 Falcon Heavy launch saw 2,102 day trippers and 1,487 overnighters coming to the coast.
If all goes as planned, the satellites launched Dec. 30 will travel to lower Earth orbit via Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, which to date has not yet completed a launch. The Dec. 31 launch vehicle is a United Launch Alliance Vulcan. United Launch Alliance is a partnership between Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT) and Boeing Defense, Space & Security (NYSE: BA).
Project Kuiper is the moniker for Amazon’s global broadband network, and a “protoflight” mission launching two prototype Kuiper satellites went up on Oct. 6 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Those prototypes, KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2, are part of testing activities, routing data from the internet through the company’s Amazon Web Services-powered ground network. Data is traveling from a ground gateway antenna up to the prototype satellites and then down to customer terminal antennas at Amazon’s test site, according to a company fact sheet. The prototype satellites will not be part of the future constellation.
Amazon launches out of Central Florida. The company also is building a roughly 100,000-square-foot satellite processing facility at Kennedy Space Center. With that will come up to 50 new permanent jobs paying an average annual wage of $80,000 plus benefits. Another 300 temporary jobs will be created during the construction phase.
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