Amazon is spending $120 million to construct a brand new facility for its Project Kuiper satellites in Florida. On Thursday, the corporate announced it should use the 100,000-square-foot constructing to arrange its web satellites for his or her launch into space.
The constructing can be situated at Space Florida’s Launch and Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center, where NASA once landed its Space Shuttle missions. Along with its large square footage, the ability can even feature a 100-foot-tall bay, giving Amazon loads of room to integrate its satellites with rockets from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and the United Launch Alliance (ULA).
Steve Metayer, Amazon’s vp of Kuiper production operations, tells that he expects to complete construction on the constructing toward the top of next yr, with satellite processing starting in early 2025.
Despite the delay, Amazon says it should start producing satellites at its facility in Kirkland, Washington, by the top of this yr and that it expects to “production launches and early enterprise customer pilots” in 2024.
“We’ve got an ambitious plan to start Project Kuiper’s full-scale production launches and early customer pilots next yr, and this recent facility will play a critical role in helping us deliver on that timeline,” Metayer says.
Amazon has lots of catching as much as do with its biggest competitor: SpaceX’s Starlink. Starlink has already deployed a constellation of over 4,000 satellites and is providing service to greater than 1.5 million people around the globe. But Amazon may ultimately need SpaceX to succeed — SpaceX’s rockets have turn into the most well-liked mode of transport for satellite launch corporations and government agencies.