Artist renderings of the companies’ missiles, left to right: New Glenn, Vulcan Centaur, and Ariane 6.
Blue Origin / United Launch Alliance / Arianespace
Amazon announced on Tuesday that it is the largest rocket deal in the history of the commercial space industry, signing up to 83 launches of its Project Kuiper internet satellites with three companies.
The tech giant signed deals for 38 launches with United Launch Alliance (ULA) – a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin; 18 launches with the European company Arianespace; and 12 launches with Blue Origin, with an option for up to 15 additional launches with the private company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Project Kuiper is Amazon’s plan to build a network of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit to deliver high-speed internet anywhere in the world. The FCC approved Amazon’s system in 2020, which the company says it will “invest more than $10 billion” in building.
Amazon is expected to begin testing a pair of Kuiper prototype satellites, scheduled for launch later this year and launched on ABL Space’s RS1 rocket, before proceeding to launch operational satellites. Though Amazon hasn’t said when the Kuiper launch campaign will begin, FCC rules require the company to deploy half of its planned satellites within six years — meaning about 1,600 in orbit by July 2026.
“We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but the team has continued to achieve milestone after milestone in every aspect of our satellite system and services,” said in a statement.
The terms of the deals announced on Tuesday were not disclosed.
ULA will use its Vulcan rockets for the 38 Kuiper launches, in addition to the nine Kuiper Atlas V rocket launches that Amazon bought last year. ULA’s Vulcan rocket has yet to launch, but its first mission is scheduled for later this year. While ULA hasn’t disclosed the base price of a Vulcan launch, the US government has been buying launches with the rocket for about $112 million each.
Arianespace will fly its 18 Kuiper missions on its upcoming Ariane 6 rockets, also due to debut later this year. The European rocket builder has also not specified the Ariane 6 pricing structure, but has previously said it is targeting a base price of $77 million per launch.
Blue Origin will use its New Glenn rockets to fly the 12 Kuiper missions it will host. While Blue Origin currently has no official target date for New Glenn’s first launch, CNBC has previously reported that the rocket is expected to debut in 2024 or later. The company hasn’t publicly disclosed the price for the New Glenn launches, but an estimate by Arianespace two years ago put the Blue Origin rocket at $68 million per launch. While both companies were founded by Bezos, Blue Origin is separate from Amazon.
Overall, Amazon’s Kuiper launch contracts are easily worth billions of dollars, although it’s not clear what impact competitive bidding and possible discounts for bulk orders would have on overall prices. All four companies did not want to comment on the costs.
Take on SpaceX
Notably absent from Amazon’s payroll for launch is the most active US rocket company: Elon Musk’s SpaceX. But even with Musk’s pledge to launch competitors, Amazon and SpaceX have feuded over their respective Kuiper and Starlink satellite internet networks long before federal authorities did.
SpaceX has built a sizable lead over Amazon in the race to deliver internet from space, having launched about 2,000 Starlink satellites to date, serving a total of about 250,000 subscribers.
But Amazon is banking on its global footprint to fill that gap. The company says the Kuiper Network will “leverage Amazon’s global logistics and operations footprint and Amazon Web Services (AWS) network and infrastructure.”
Amazon also has a head start in removing a key barrier to affordable satellite internet: the antennas that customers need to get connected. Amazon has touted its “experience in making low-cost devices and services like the Echo and Kindle” to make the service’s price “accessible.”
Amazon has yet to give a lot of information about the Kuiper satellites, like mass or power, and it hasn’t specified the number of satellites that will be launched with each rocket. But the company’s design is likely nearing completion, if not already, as Amazon announced it is working with Swiss company Beyond Gravity to build satellite donors to deploy the Kuiper spacecraft.