On Monday, Amazon filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission for an experimental license to launch the first two prototype satellites for “Project Kuiper,” its planned answer to Starlink.
Amazon’s designs for Kuiper (named after astronomer Gerard Kuiper) involve a full 3,236 small satellites in low Earth orbit to beam broadband to underserved customers. But this giant leap will have to start with two small steps, in the form of the test launches it expects to conduct in the fourth quarter of 2022.
The company has signed up a new rocket builder for these prototype missions. And it’s not Blue Origin, the space startup from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos that has now staged two crewed suborbital flights,taking the likes of Bezos himself and actor William Shatner to space. Blue Origin has yet to deliver a payload to orbit.
The post, for example, notes that “one of the two prototype satellites will include a sunshade to help us understand whether it is an…
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Source : fastcompany.com
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