Amazon will Launch Project Kuiper’s First Batch of Satellites to Compete with Starlink
Next week, Amazon is getting ready to launch its first complete set of Project Kuiper satellites, which will be a significant step in the internet giant’s attempt to rival Elon Musk’s Starlink.
Kuiper Atlas 1 Launch Date & Time
The Kuiper Atlas 1 mission is scheduled for launch on:
Date: Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Time: 12:00 PM EDT (1600 GMT)
Location: Cape Canaveral, Florida
When Will Internet Service for Project Kuiper Start?
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) industrial group, a partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, will execute the deployment.
The satellites are a major improvement over the two prototypes that were successfully tested during a flight in October 2023, according to a statement from Amazon.
Similar to Starlink, the service is intended to bring internet connectivity to even the most isolated and underdeveloped regions of the planet, such as locations affected by natural disasters or conflict zones.
Service is anticipated to start later this year, and Project Kuiper seeks to provide “high-speed, low-latency internet to virtually any location on the planet,” according to Amazon.
More than 3,200 cutting-edge low Earth orbit satellites will be part of the constellation when it is finished, the business stated.
Amazon now faces direct competition from SpaceX’s Starlink and other satellite internet providers as a result of this launch.
The largest company in the industry, Musk’s SpaceX, launched the first of its more than 6,750 operational Starlink satellites in 2019.
China intends to launch 13,000 satellites as part of its GuoWang constellation, while German start-up Rivada is aiming for 600 and Canada’s Telesat will add 300.
That will be on top of the 170 satellites from the European Union’s Iris project and the 300–500 spacecraft the U.S. military’s Space Development Agency plans to deploy.
