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At the top of an Amazon press release sent this week is an amazing image. This is a rocket printed with an American flag and a smiling Amazon logo above it, flying to the skies. The company officially launches its business into space, and Jeff Bezos doesn’t even provide transportation.
Amazon recently announced that by the end of next year, a startup called ABL Space Systems will deliver two prototype satellites to Project Kuiper, the company’s efforts to build a low Earth orbit, or LEO, a satellite constellation that can transmit Internet connectivity to Earth. Amazon says it will eventually deploy 3,236 such satellites, “which will provide fast, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world.” It doesn’t hurt that becoming a space ISP could also help grow the company’s cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Amazon says satellites will work with Verizon to deliver LTE and 5G services. in difficult places to reach.
It is difficult to argue with the idea of attracting more people online. In some parts of the world, broadband is a human right. But if you’re worried about Amazon’s growing dominance over everything, it may seem daunting that one of the world’s most powerful companies is launching satellites into space and will soon be directing Internet traffic across the planet. In addition, thanks to AWS, the new satellite-based Internet business will definitely succeed. As Babak Beheshti, dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the New York Institute of Technology, told me last year, “Amazon will essentially be its biggest customer, really going to fuel the revenue stream. ”
But given the history of telecommunications monopolies here on Earth, it may not actually be so bad that more companies are joining the race for the Internet.
“Increased competition in the market over the next few years is likely to lead to innovations that will improve service quality and, ideally, more affordable prices,” said Mark Buell, North American regional vice president of the Internet Society, an international advocacy organization. for open development and use of the Internet.
Amazon is not alone in its mission to create a fast and sustainable Internet service using satellite constellations. Starlink, a SpaceX project, already has more than 1,700 satellites in low Earth orbit, and the company says there are currently about 90,000 people testing the service, each paying $ 99 a month (plus a $ 499 satellite fee) for the privilege. . OneWeb, a British company that went bankrupt a year ago, has more than 350 satellites in orbit now, about half of the total it plans for its constellation.
The idea behind all these services is relatively simple when it comes to space things. An earth station with an optical connection transmits data to the satellite constellation, and the satellites transmit data back to the clients. Although they literally go into space and back, connections can also be fast. Project Kuiper says its prototype delivers speeds of up to 400 Mbps, much faster than the average broadband speed in the United States. And because the connection comes from the sky, virtually any point on the planet can get Internet service without having to string wires over mountains, under the ocean, through rainforests, or anywhere in the distance. Amazon itself may be in a unique position to do this particularly well.
“Providing telecommunications services is more than just launching satellites into space,” Buell said. “The infrastructure must be in place. Amazon has made significant investments in fiber optic cables to connect its data centers – and, importantly, Amazon has the logistics it will take to operate more than 3,200 satellites.
Attracting more people online is in itself a perfectly valid goal for Amazon, but again, the company’s ambitions can extend beyond that. Last year, AWS completed the construction of six ground stations as part of a new initiative to offer its customers easier access to satellite communications control and satellite data processing. The business is called AWS Ground Station, of course, and it soon looks like Amazon will have its own satellites in orbit, potentially informing whatever services AWS decides to offer in the future.
However, the fact that Amazon will launch Project Kuiper not only to sell Internet services to customers, but also to strengthen its AWS offerings, is hardly a scandal. The commercial space industry is in its infancy and has many advantages in devising the basic logistics for launching rockets and satellites into orbit and experimenting with what is possible. That’s what Jeff Bezos has been doing since retiring earlier this year as CEO of the company he founded. His space company, Blue Origin, recently announced plans to build a “mixed-use business park” in orbit that will lease parts of a space station for commercial use. The habitable satellite could be online when the International Space Station is withdrawn, probably at the end of this decade.
Elon Musk, meanwhile, says he wants Starlink revenue to pay for his Starship project and missions to colonize other planets. The billionaire said in 2019 that the space broadband business was “a key step towards creating a self-sustaining city on Mars and a base on the moon.” Starship has already been chosen as a vehicle for the Artemis missions, which plan to land people on the moon immediately after 2024.
But neither SpaceX nor Blue Origin will take Amazon’s new satellites into space. California-based startup ABL Space Systems, which specializes in transporting smaller payloads into orbit on cheaper rockets, appears to have offered Amazon a bargain. ABL Space Systems, which has not yet launched a rocket, says it can launch nearly 1.5 tons of payload into low Earth orbit on its RS1 rocket, the same one that will carry Amazon Kuiper satellites, for $ 12 million per launch. The launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 could cost up to $ 62 million. And Blue Origin seems to be more focused on launching celebrities into space.
What sets Project Kuiper and its competitors apart has little to do with who flies rockets or goes to Mars, or even how Amazon starts a new space business. For many, the success of these projects can mean the difference between having access to the Internet and not having it. Currently, at least 21 million Americans do not have access to quality broadband, according to the FCC, which means countless children who do not have access to online educational tools and patients who do not have access to telemedicine – among many other things. So if Amazon wants to attract more people online, well, there are many benefits for many people. And for Amazon, many potential new customers.
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