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Amazon plans to launch two prototype satellites for its Project Kuiper internet service in the fourth quarter of 2022. The company is requesting a permit from the FCC to launch KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2 to an altitude of 590km.
Amazon has for this submitted a request with the US telecoms authority FCC, the company registers a blog post. KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2 should, among other things, enable Amazon to test the communication and network technologies that will be used in the final Internet satellites for Project Kuiper.
The two prototypes will contain “many of the technologies and subsystems that will power the production versions,” the company said. The two satellites must also use the Ka band, which consists of frequencies between 26.5 and 40GHz in the electromagnetic spectrum.
If Amazon gets a permit for the launch, the two KuiperSat satellites will be launched from Florida in late 2022 to low Earth orbit, at a final altitude of 590km. The two satellites are transported separately with RS1 rockets from ABL Space Systems.
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Once in space, the two satellites will connect to four customer terminals, which the company eventually plans to provide to its customers and will be used to connect to the Internet through the Kuiper constellation. Amazon will operate these terminals from a predetermined area in Texas. The terminals will use 17.8-18.6GHz frequencies for space-to-Earth communications and 28.6-29.1GHz for Earth-to-space communications during the mission, according to information provided to Amazon in the FCC. request provided.
The American company expects the two satellites to fly over each ‘less than five times a day’. The tests proposed by Amazon include broadband tests on the up and down links between the satellites and the terminals. The full test procedure takes just under 11 minutes, the documents show. When the two-year test mission is completed, Amazon will de-orbit and the satellites will merge into the atmosphere. That must happen within a year of the mission’s conclusion, Amazon writes in its FCC documents.
Amazon has been working on offering satellite internet for some time now. Company got permission last year from the FCC to launch more than 3,200 satellites into low Earth orbit by 2029. With this, the company wants to compete with other satellite projects, such as Starlink from SpaceX, although that space company already offers its internet services commercially. Amazon plans to invest $10 billion in Project Kuiper.
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