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Tech giant Amazon is adding a fifth rocket to launch its satellite web constellation. In a surprise move on Friday afternoon, the corporate announced it purchased three flights aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets to send batched of its Project Kuiper satellites to low Earth orbit.
The news was unexpected by many for the reason that launch company, owned by Elon Musk, was previously neglected of an historically large launch purchase when Amazon acquired 77 launches using Arianespace’s Ariane 6, Blue Origin’s Recent Glenn and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rockets in spring 2022.
This purchase was on top of the previously announced nine launches using ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket. The primary of those nine was used to launch the primary two prototype satellites in October on account of Vulcan delays.
In a blog post, Amazon stated that it three flights on board Falcon 9 rockets would start in mid-2025 and would “offer much more capability to support our deployment schedule.” Spaceflight Now reached out to Amazon for further details, but a spokesperson said the blog post was the extent of their statement on Project Kuiper in the meanwhile.
Ticking clock
Amazon is up against the clock in the case of getting its Project Kuiper constellation deployed. The corporate must launch 1,618 Kuiper satellites, or half of its planned first-generation constellation, into orbit by July 30, 2026 to be able to meet a compulsory deadline from the Federal Communication Commission (FCC).
The three foremost launch vehicles upon which Amazon is relying are all facing delays. On Thursday, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that the debut of the Ariane 6 rocket wouldn’t come until sometime between mid-June and end of July 2024.
When it does launch, officials said they only anticipate launching yet one more time that 12 months.
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Blue Origin’s Recent Glenn rocket stays in development as well. During a Nov. 20 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s Human Exploration and Operations committee, the director of NASA’s Launch Services Office stated that the Mars-bound Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission would likely be the primary mission for Recent Glenn.
A June press release from the corporate Advanced Space stated that the mission was set to launch in late 2024.
ULA’s Vulcan rocket is the furthest along of the three with its maiden flight set for no sooner than December 24. It’s next couple of launches are already booked between its second certification flight with Sierra Space as the shopper after which its first national security mission following up.
Meaning it may very well be mid- to late-2024 before Vulcan can be available to begin flying Kuiper missions. And that just leaves the eight Atlas 5 flights for Amazon and ULA would wish to toggle between Atlas and Vulcan flights to slot in Kuiper missions.
Considered one of the early 2024 priorities for ULA will likely be launching first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft for NASA’s Industrial Crew Program. That mission is ready to launch in mid-April.
Battling legal woes
For SpaceX, launching competitors to its Starlink web satellite constellation is nothing recent. It launched dozens of satellites for OneWeb’s constellation between the top of 2022 and spring 2023.
SpaceX also signed a contract with German company Rivanda Space Networks to launch 300 of its satellites between 2025 and 2026.
A lawsuit brought against Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the board of Amazon and Amazon itself claims that the board took “lower than 40 minutes” during a March 3, 2022, meeting to make the choice of Arianespace, Blue Origin and ULA because the launch providers for the Project Kuiper constellation.
The criticism claims that “By excluding SpaceX, Bezos and his management team minimized bid competition for the launch agreements and certain committed Amazon to spending lots of of thousands and thousands of dollars greater than it might have otherwise needed to.”
Amazon disputed the claims made within the lawsuit. In response to Reuters reporter Joey Roulette, the move to buy launches from SpaceX comes days before a Monday deadline to defend itself in court against the shareholder lawsuit.
Amazon has committed to spending $10 billion on the Project Kuiper constellation and is within the means of constructing a $120 million satellite processing facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida where it’s going to prepare satellites for flight and encapsulate them in Recent Glenn and Vulcan payload fairings. Spaceflight Now asked Amazon if the ability would even be used for the SpaceX flights, but the corporate declined to reply.