Kuiper Moving Into Manufacturing Phase: Amazon

Assembly of a pair of prototype Amazon Kuiper satellites should be done by year's end, and then head to United Launch Alliance for launch, Amazon Senior Vice President-Devices and Services Dave Limp said Thursday in a Washington Post webinar. The company announced it was setting up a 172,000-square-foot satellite production facility in Kirkland, Washington -- a sign, Limp said, it's moving into Kuiper's manufacturing phase. He said Kuiper ultimately will need to turn out at least one to three satellites daily. He said Kuiper remains on track to have at least half its 3,236-satellite constellation in orbit and operational by July 2026. He said Kuiper plans to test some means of reducing light reflectivity on its prototypes, but didn't elaborate. Asked about competition with SpaceX's Starlink, which already has more than 3,000 satellites in orbit, Limp pointed to hundreds of millions of potential subscribers globally to satellite-delivered broadband who currently are unserved or underserved. "There will be plenty of room for two constellations," he said. He said a potential Kuiper advantage is its receiver dish costs, which will be lower than Starlink's. He said Amazon currently has cost of its dishes at less than $400 each. He said Kuiper's integration with Amazon's AWS cloud business will also allow for lower latency and more security. Asked about antitrust worries as the company enters internet provision, Limp said he has talked to dozens of members of Congress and they are strongly supportive of Kuiper. He said the billions of dollars in capital spending necessitates a big company like Amazon being involved. Lawmakers representing rural areas "know how important broadband is for their constituents," he said. "I think there is going to be a lot of support for this."