Amazon's Project Kuiper slips to end of 2024 for first full-scale launch

The first full-scale mission of Amazon's Project Kuiper has slipped to the end of 2024, a year after the company finally got its prototype satellites into orbit. In a post regarding its satellite manufacturing facility in Kirkland, Washington, Amazon said: "We're targeting our first full-scale Kuiper mission for Q4 aboard an …

[Anonymous Coward]

There can be many reasons for delays between prototypes and in-orbit service provision, usually because it turns out that this space stuff really is hard to do right…

[xyz]

This has the smell of Starliner all over it

+ anyone heard from OneWeb recently?

[UnknownUnknown]

Re: This has the smell of Starliner all over it

Amazon should just have bought OneWeb when it was in distress instead of the UK Government and Bharti. Now well funded. Whether their own or as part of ownership changes 630.

. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutelsat_OneWeb#:~:text=Total%20number%20of%20operational%20satellites%3A%20634%20as%20of%2020%20May%202023.

https://oneweb.net/our-network

[Justthefacts]

I doubt it

“Project Kuiper will also be using Blue Origin's New Glenn and Arianespace's Ariane 6”

Not with a 2026 regulatory deadline they aren’t, which requires launching at full cadence throughout 2025. Whoever Amazon go with, whatever mix, they need at least 45 launches in an 18-month period starting Jan ‘25. Kuiper’s only hope is either: getting a let-off from regulatory; down- scoping the constellation size; or shifting the load to SpaceX. Probably a mixture of all three.

*Possibly* for the second-half follow-on, one or both launch systems might be ready a year or two later. But even if Ariane-6 baby steps is “mostly ok” in a few days time, realistically volume launches can’t start in earnest until Q4 2025. Ariane first test flight is only a 50/50 shot, with the signs thus far very not encouraging (unexplained failures during static tests, but zero resulting modifications made to the flight model). Arianespace pretended cadence schedule is beyond delusional. They claim they can do 8 per year. In fact, even with Ariane 5, a fully mature vehicle, Ariane never managed to average more than 5 per year. And when there is a capacity crunch, hands up who thinks Arianespace are going to be allowed to dump Galileo launches in favour of Amazon. It’s not happening.

New Glenn first launch target is end-September this year. We don’t know what their maximum potential launch cadence is, they are targeting 10+ per year, but there’s no reason at all to think that’s possible. *One* would be good.