Amazon taps SpaceX to help launch its Project Kuiper internet satellites

Amazon announced that it had signed a contract with SpaceX to launch batches of its Project Kuiper satellites to get in low Earth orbit (LEO) on time.

Despite being future’s biggest rival against SpaceX, Amazon says that it had secured three launches through SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. These will lift-off beginning mid-2025.

Photo/ SpaceX

“Project Kuiper satellites were designed from the start to accommodate multiple launch providers and vehicles, allowing us to reduce schedule risk and move faster in our mission to connect unserved and underserved communities around the world,” the company said in a newsletter.

Amazon’s executive chairman Jeff Bezos also has his own aerospace company—Blue Origin—with rockets in development, but Amazon opted for SpaceX due to the company’s unparalleled reliability.

Amazon pointed out that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has completed more than 270 successful launches and is designed for “…reliable and safe transport of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond.”

The company has launched two prototype satellites to orbit and says that they are operating successfully in LEO.

Amazon aims to deploy 3,226 satellites for Project Kuiper’s constellation over the next six years. While SpaceX’s Starlink has over 5,000 satellites launched to LEO since 2019.