Amazon Project Kuiper Broadband Constellation

[RedLineTrain]

I doubt SpaceX views Kuiper as much of a competitor overall.  The real competitor is terrestrial comms, either DSL or terrestrially-served smartphone.  They will set prices in relation to those and I expect that Starlink prices will moderate in the next few years no matter what Kuiper does.

There will be exceptions, of course.  Perhaps ships, planes, islands.  But even in those situations, Kuiper may just supplant the geosats as the preferred backup provider.

[Robotbeat]

It’s funny that basically no one considers OneWeb a Starlink competitor any more. Starlink is so ahead that OneWeb just doesn’t make a big impact, except padding out the Falcon 9 manifest. With Starlink v2mini (and eventually v2 Starship/v3), a similar situation is playing out with Kuiper.

OneWeb can be profitable (especially after shedding debt via bankruptcy), maybe even Kuiper can be profitable while Starlink remains dominant.

[seb21051]

I was thinking about the shape of the Kuiper prototypes, as evidenced by their packing boxes. That particular shape could be a lot more difficult to get a large number into a fairing (think 60+ 800kg box-like devices into an NG payload space).

If it was easy to put a lot of square boxes in such a payload space, why would SX have gone with their flat-pack designs?

It seems reasonable to expect to see Kuiper come up with something resembling such flatpack iterations once they get ready to launch production birds.

Obviously, rampant speculation.

[Asteroza]

I was thinking about the shape of the Kuiper prototypes, as evidenced by their packing boxes. That particular shape could be a lot more difficult to get a large number into a fairing (think 60+ 800kg box-like devices into an NG payload space).

If it was easy to put a lot of square boxes in such a payload space, why would SX have gone with their flat-pack designs?

It seems reasonable to expect to see Kuiper come up with something resembling such flatpack iterations once they get ready to launch production birds.

Obviously, rampant speculation.

They did have a patent for flat packing three sat tiles per layer using a clipped diamond style tile design.

[Twark_Main]

What can we tell from the packing boxes?

It's possible that much of the overall shape is the result of internal support hardware (consider the large exterior interface plates) and shock absorbing / protective material.

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/heres-your-first-look-at-project-kuipers-low-cost-customer-terminals

[GewoonLukas_]

Cross-post:

Our first look at a Project Kuiper satellite in space 🤩

Congrats to the team at @amazon on a successful launch and deployment. Can't wait to see more in space!

https://twitter.com/heospace/status/1734332865910075609

[Zed_Noir]

From the hazy image of the Kuiper Protosat. Guess the Kuiper protosat is just a rectangular bus with a pair of deployable solar arrays and the transponders on one facet of the bus. Resembling most recent commercial satcoms minus large deployable antennas.

Of course the production Kuipersat bus might not resemble the protosat bus at all.

[catdlr]

Project Kuiper: Amazon's Satellite Internet to compete with Starlink

Dec 12, 2023
Amazon's Project Kuiper will provide internet service via 3,236 satellites, competing with SpaceX Starlink and others.  The October 6 test launch was declared a success, so deployment will start in 2024. The system is compared to Starlink, considering issues such as the apparent lack of inter-satellite links at least in the initial phases. Also, Amazon finally contracted for 3 Falcon 9 launches. If more are purchased, that could help it meet its difficult goals of launching enough satellites to keep its license.  At a minimum, the 3 launches should relieve pressure from a shareholder lawsuit and potential challenges if a deadline extension is needed. Now, every active Starlink competitor does or will use SpaceX launches!

This video is also a segment in the December 9, 2023 Monthly Space News.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1735313941541126154

Amazon tested laser links with its Kuiper prototype satellites, maintaining a connection of 100 Gbps across multiple tests.

The company plans to include optical inter-satellite links from the outset in production satellites launching next year:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/14/amazon-to-connect-kuiper-internet-satellites-with-laser-links.html

Amazon to connect Kuiper satellites with laser links to boost space internet network
PUBLISHED THU, DEC 14 202310:00 AM EST
Michael Sheetz

KEY POINTS

Amazon will include a key technology in its coming Project Kuiper internet satellites, the company announced, following successful tests in space during its recent prototype mission.

Kuiper satellites will feature “optical inter-satellite links,” also known as OISLs or laser links – which serve as a way to connect the satellites to each other in orbit.

“With optical inter-satellite links across our satellite constellation, Project Kuiper will effectively operate as a mesh network in space,” a company executive said.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/joroulette/status/1737186369678516376

Here's the first pic of one of Amazon's prototype Kuiper satellites, as it flies over Hawaii in orbit on Oct 6. Kuiper chief Rajeev Badyal recently shared it on LinkedIn

[Tywin]

Some info, to put in perspective, what Amazon, MEAN in terms of money if they want...

[meekGee]

Some info, to put in perspective, what Amazon, MEAN in terms of money if they want...

I don't think your slides tell the story you think they do...

[Robotbeat]

Some info, to put in perspective, what Amazon, MEAN in terms of money if they want...

I don't think your slides tell the story you think they do...

Can both of you be more explicit with what you're thinking?

[meekGee]

Some info, to put in perspective, what Amazon, MEAN in terms of money if they want...

I don't think your slides tell the story you think they do...

Can both of you be more explicit with what you're thinking?

Well the original post left a couple of issues open ...

First, if Amazon can be a juggernaut on anything they wish to be a juggernaut at, explain failures like their phone effort (clearly it was super important since such a large fraction of shopping is done via phones).

Second the slides boast that their ad revenue compares to that of youTube, but ot neglects to show how small it is compared to Google or Facebook - and again, not for lack of trying.

It also shows that advertising remains a small portion of their overall business.

So yeah, maybe it'll grow in the future and maybe not, but those slides certainly don't demonstrate the claims.

Amazon, to date, has dominated online retail, amd has kept a reasonable lead in cloud services.  Other than that, most other efforts were not successful (e.g. Alexa, air delivery, phones).  Oh - they did a reasonable job standing up home delivery, but I'm not sure whether it's a financial success yet.

I would certainly not say that Kuiper has a good chance to succeed just because of its corporate parent.  They're super late to a market that's very time sensitive, they do not have the cheap ride that the leader has  and will be far inferior in price/performance when they eventually deploy.  Their decision to avoid SpaceX rides is downright stupid.

[TrevorMonty]

will be far inferior in price/performance when they eventually deploy. 

What is their domestic user pricing compared to Starlink?.

[meekGee]

will be far inferior in price/performance when they eventually deploy. 

What is their domestic user pricing compared to Starlink?.

How can they have one yet?  They are several years from service.

Remember that the demand for bandwidth is ever growing. There's a reason Starlink is itching to switch to full-size V2/3 satellites, and there's a good chance they can do that faster than Kuiper can deploy their current gen sats.  What happens then?  Kuiper risks being the next OneWeb - just too far behind to matter.

[JayWee]

I would certainly not say that Kuiper has a good chance to succeed just because of its corporate parent.  They're super late to a market that's very time sensitive, they do not have the cheap ride that the leader has  and will be far inferior in price/performance when they eventually deploy.  Their decision to avoid SpaceX rides is downright stupid.

It's just a question of how long will Amazon be willing to subsidize it.

But in any case, Kuiper will always have the disadvantage of buying the launches. Amazon spent $10B on the launches. Had it been SX internal cost of ~$15M/launch marginal, it'd be just $1.3B. That's about 6 years of Starlink revenue difference.
And it's going to get worse with Starship.

[TrevorMonty]

will be far inferior in price/performance when they eventually deploy. 

What is their domestic user pricing compared to Starlink?.

How can they have one yet?  They are several years from service.

Remember that the demand for bandwidth is ever growing. There's a reason Starlink is itching to switch to full-size V2/3 satellites, and there's a good chance they can do that faster than Kuiper can deploy their current gen sats.  What happens then?  Kuiper risks being the next OneWeb - just too far behind to matter.

This is your statement from above. I assume you had access to Kupier pricing to state it.
"
and will be far inferior in price/performance when they eventually deploy
"

[meekGee]

will be far inferior in price/performance when they eventually deploy. 

What is their domestic user pricing compared to Starlink?.

How can they have one yet?  They are several years from service.

Remember that the demand for bandwidth is ever growing. There's a reason Starlink is itching to switch to full-size V2/3 satellites, and there's a good chance they can do that faster than Kuiper can deploy their current gen sats.  What happens then?  Kuiper risks being the next OneWeb - just too far behind to matter.

This is your statement from above. I assume you had access to Kupier pricing to state it.
"
and will be far inferior in price/performance when they eventually deploy
"

So you think Kuiper published pricing and performance already?  That's some optimism...

I made the obvious observation that since mass in orbit will be a lot lower, and getting it there will be so much more expensive, and will happen so many years after Starlink started operating - it will have lower capacity per price.

These services are too big to subsidize in the long run, even for Amazon. Starlink is at $1B/qtr even now, and the period of crazy growth is still ahead of it.

[deltaV]

TrevorMonty and meekGee: please use the "preview" button before posting and fix your quotes.

[zubenelgenubi: I came across their mess and edited quotes.  I shouldn't have to for two veteran forum warriors. 😫  They should be able to clean up their own messes.]