Amazon wants to target "tens of millions of customers", and will focus on lowering the user terminal price. The "bill of materials" alone is under 400$ he says. Admittedly the Kuiper Ka band satelllite & terminal are more complex than Starlink's Ku one. 2/
https://twitter.com/LionnetPierre/status/1586709356661379072QuoteAmazon wants to target "tens of millions of customers", and will focus on lowering the user terminal price. The "bill of materials" alone is under 400$ he says. Admittedly the Kuiper Ka band satelllite & terminal are more complex than Starlink's Ku one. 2/I don't think it was known before that the "under $500" figure for Kuiper user terminal is actually the BOM cost. If I'm not mistaken the price of a consumer electronics would be a lot higher than the BOM cost, usually 3x to 5x more, so Kuiper's user terminal doesn't look that cheap does it?
Interview with Clint Crosier from AWS and services they offer to space businesses eg satellite operators.AWS now pushing their APIs to customers satellites, so satellite can run latest and greatest APIs applicable to operators needs. Examples were processing of images by satellite to discard images with clouds, another example to monitoring ship movement. Satellite would detect when ship moves and download images once it starts leaving port, uptil then images are discarded. I can see Kuiper satellites providing AWS services to satellites where images etc are transmitted to Kuiper satellite and it does processing. They never discussed this but suspect that is where things are going. Sent from my SM-T733 using Tapatalk
Examples were processing of images by satellite to discard images with clouds
another example to monitoring ship movement. Satellite would detect when ship moves and download images once it starts leaving port, uptil then images are discarded.
"Given the uncertain macroeconomic environment, over the last few months we have used different financing options to support capital expenditures, debt repayments, acquisitions, and working capital needs," an Amazon spokesperson told Reuters in a statement.<snip>Amazon had about $35 billion in cash and cash equivalents and long-term debt of about $59 billion at the end of the third quarter ended Sept. 30.
Could someone please explain what is meant by Amazon using Kuiper as a "Backhaul" data path? I was a trucker and backhaul meant trying to get a load out of a black hole like Miami just cover the cost of fuel to return to base.
Quote from: seb21051 on 01/23/2023 07:22 pmCould someone please explain what is meant by Amazon using Kuiper as a "Backhaul" data path? I was a trucker and backhaul meant trying to get a load out of a black hole like Miami just cover the cost of fuel to return to base....Kuiper (or Starlink, or GEO-based telecomm) is a catastrophically bad fit for these (backhaul) links...
The launch of its first commercial operation is in Hatsushima, an island located off the Atami coast in Sagami Bay. ...The company will eventually expand its network of remote towers to 1,200.
Quote from: seb21051 on 01/23/2023 07:22 pmCould someone please explain what is meant by Amazon using Kuiper as a "Backhaul" data path? I was a trucker and backhaul meant trying to get a load out of a black hole like Miami just cover the cost of fuel to return to base.Their primary means of moving data between AWS servers scattered around world and also large customers.Currently terrestrial fibre which isn't necessarily secure given there are 10-100,000kms of fibre that somecone could potentially tap into and easedrop.
Open #space industry jobs in the #Seattle area & #WashingtonState are above 1,000 for the 18th month in a row.A rapid decline in open roles at #Amazon's #ProjectKuiper propels #AerojetRocketdyne to the number 3 spot for space hiring in WA State after #BlueOrigin and #SpaceX.
What number of Kuiper listings were there in October? It is unusual for a company like that to wind down hiring to that degree.
Went from 189 at end of October to 14 yesterday (in WA state, not total). It's unusual, at least in the nearly 3 years I've been monitoring. Could be due largely due to Amazon hiring freeze.
Only 43 months until half the constellation needs to be up and the signs aren’t looking good.KuiperSat 1 and 2 has slipped from Q4 22 to probably Q2 23. Launch vehicle availability doesn’t look so good. I’d suggest it’s unlikely that there will be significant non-governmental availability on Vulcan and Ariane 6 for at least a couple of years. New Glenn, who knows - first flight 2025 according to Eric. Amazon’s cash pile doesn’t look so big anymore. And now we see a hiring freeze when we’d expect to be seeing a big ramp. Meanwhile the competition is ramping up to 100 flights per year.I suspect that meeting the FCC timescale has slipped well into the realms of fantasy. I also suspect the business case doesn’t close.
Quote from: ThatOldJanxSpirit on 02/01/2023 12:57 pmOnly 43 months until half the constellation needs to be up and the signs aren’t looking good.KuiperSat 1 and 2 has slipped from Q4 22 to probably Q2 23. Launch vehicle availability doesn’t look so good. I’d suggest it’s unlikely that there will be significant non-governmental availability on Vulcan and Ariane 6 for at least a couple of years. New Glenn, who knows - first flight 2025 according to Eric. Amazon’s cash pile doesn’t look so big anymore. And now we see a hiring freeze when we’d expect to be seeing a big ramp. Meanwhile the competition is ramping up to 100 flights per year.I suspect that meeting the FCC timescale has slipped well into the realms of fantasy. I also suspect the business case doesn’t close.Half the constellation is 1638 satellites. 1638/43 is 38 satellites per month. They have nine Atlas Vs on contract and ULA can launch one Atlas V per month per launch pad (one at VSFB and one at CCSFS).(Note: The following are made-up example numbers) However, if they can launch 50 satellites/month they only need 33 months, and that would need to start ten months from now. I have no idea how big a Kuiper satellite is. If Atlas V can carry 25 Kuipers, they get another 4.5 months (total 14.5, or April 2024) before they need Vulcan in full operation and launching 50 Kuiper/month.This moves it from the realm of "fantasy" into the realm of "not provably impossible", but there are still so many things that must go perfectly that I am highly skeptical. I don't even see how they can move from test launch to volume satellite production in less than a year.
More fundamentally none of these companies is SpaceX. Achieving this will require focus and drive. A hiring freeze at Redmond right now doesn’t bode well for that.I’ll concede that it is theoretically possible, but I’ll have a side of ketchup with my hat if it happens.
The Federal Communications Commission approved Amazon’s plan Feb. 8 to deploy and operate 3,236 broadband satellites, subject to conditions that include measures for avoiding collisions in low Earth orbit (LEO).Amazon got initial FCC clearance for its Ka-band Project Kuiper constellation in 2020 on the condition that it secured regulatory approval for an updated orbital debris mitigation plan.The FCC said its conditional approval of this mitigation plan allows “Kuiper to begin deployment of its constellation in order to bring high-speed broadband connectivity to customers around the world.”
