Amazon to take help from rival SpaceX to launch Kuiper satellites

The e-commerce giant Amazon recently announced that it has secured three Falcon 9 rocket launches from their rival company SpaceX to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network. The project, with a reported investment of $10 billion since 2019, is planning to send an unspecified number of satellites on Falcon 9 rockets starting in mid-2025.

Amazon aims to build Kuiper as a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit to beam broadband internet globally and compete with SpaceX's Starlink network, which already has some 5,000 satellites providing nearly global coverage.

The Falcon 9 missions add to 83 rocket launches it had already procured from Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin, the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance and Europe's Arianespace in a multi-billion dollar launch deal.

Amazon's announcement that it added SpaceX rockets to its launch campaign comes just three days before its deadline to lodge a substantive defence against the shareholder lawsuit, according to a court scheduling order.

SpaceX's partially reusable Falcon 9 rockets have been a crucial advantage over rivals in its rapid deployment of Starlink, a fast-growing internet network that made the Musk-owned company the world's largest satellite operator.

Amazon expects to deploy enough satellites for "early customer pilots" in the second half of 2024. It plans to use United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 and the yet-to-launch Vulcan rocket for the first few batches of satellites.