{"id":17612,"date":"2020-12-17T21:18:52","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T13:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/project-kuiper-plus-aws-how-amazons-cloud-and-satellite-internet-ventures-mesh\/"},"modified":"2020-12-17T21:18:52","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T13:18:52","slug":"project-kuiper-plus-aws-how-amazons-cloud-and-satellite-internet-ventures-mesh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/project-kuiper-plus-aws-how-amazons-cloud-and-satellite-internet-ventures-mesh\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Kuiper plus AWS: How Amazon\u2019s cloud and satellite internet ventures mesh"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_500563\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-500563\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-500563\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/190523-aws-630x432.jpg\" alt=\"Ground Station\" width=\"630\" height=\"432\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/190523-aws-630x432.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/190523-aws-768x527.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/190523-aws-1260x864.jpg 1260w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-500563\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amazon Web Services\u2019 infrastructure, which includes satellite ground stations, could come in handy for supporting Amazon\u2019s Project Kuiper satellite broadband constellation. (AWS Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Amazon Web Services and the Project Kuiper satellite internet venture may be separate domains of Jeff Bezos\u2019 business empire, but even Amazon\u2019s executives admit there\u2019s a lot of potential for synergy.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s one reason why the prospects for Project Kuiper shouldn\u2019t be underestimated, even though Amazon is lagging behind SpaceX and OneWeb in the commercial satellite space race.<\/p>\n<p>Project Kuiper announced last year that it intends to put 3,236 satellites into low Earth orbit, creating a constellation that would provide broadband internet access to the billions of people around the world who lack high-speed connections.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAccess to broadband is going to be very close to being a fundamental human need as we move forward. \u2026 It\u2019s also a very good business for Amazon,\u201d CEO Jeff Bezos said at last year\u2019s re:MARS conference.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, Amazon has gained the Federal Communications Commission\u2019s go-ahead for its plans \u2014 but it hasn\u2019t yet laid out a schedule for launching satellites or starting service. This week, Project Kuiper shared details about the design for its customer terminals \u2014 but the satellite design still hasn\u2019t been finalized.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d say we are in the middle of our design phase,\u201d Dave Limp, the senior vice president who\u2019s in charge of Kuiper, said at a TechCrunch space conference.<\/p>\n<p>Satellite internet service is almost certain to be commercially available from SpaceX\u2019s Starlink division and from the Indian-British OneWeb venture before Project Kuiper\u2019s constellation is in place. But Project Kuiper is almost certain to benefit from leveraging connections with Amazon Web Services, the world\u2019s biggest cloud computing platform.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re benefited a bit at Amazon by having this very good and reliable cloud service called AWS,\u201d Limp said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re able to use many of the capabilities of that to help build out our backplane, help build out our network infrastructure. You not only want to deliver great bandwidth to the customer, but you want great quality of service across the end-to-end network.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"FCC approves Amazon's project Kuiper which are low orbit satellites that will beam broadband access\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0bC2Cn446Vw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>AWS is already working on ways to expand cloud computing to the final frontier. Last year, Amazon Web Services rolled out its Ground Station service for controlling satellites and downloading data from space, and this year it unveiled a new business unit devoted to aerospace and the satellite industry.<\/p>\n<p>Clint Crosier, the former Space Force general who now heads up Amazon\u2019s Aerospace and Satellite Solutions unit, emphasized the importance of space-based cloud services this week during a teleconference with reporters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAWS is here in the space business to stay. \u2026 I will unveil to you our new motto for the aerospace and satellite team: \u2018To the stars through the cloud,&#8217;\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>For now, AWS sees Project Kuiper as one of a number of partners for space-based cloud services, Crosier told GeekWire.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKuiper is a different part of Amazon, but I will tell you, we\u2019ve had a number of meetings with Kuiper, just like we have with lots of other companies that do launch, and command and control, and others,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so we might be able to help Kuiper succeed, just the way we\u2019re helping other companies in those areas succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to how Project Kuiper will help other parts of Amazon\u2019s business empire, Limp prefers to take a similarly broad view.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy view, and Amazon\u2019s view, is the more constellations, the better. This is hard, and no one constellation is going to serve the number of unserved peop[le out there today,\u201d he said. \u201cBy the way, we also need really successful 5G networks, and we need really successful co-ax [coaxial cable] networks, right? Amazon and our customers benefit from a better internet. We will be one part of that, but I hope there are a dozen other constellations that do it reliably.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Other highlights from Limp\u2019s TechCrunch talk:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Limp noted that creating a satellite internet constellation doesn\u2019t come cheap. \u201cWe\u2019ve already committed $10 billion to this effort. It may require more, but that\u2019s the kind of good project that Amazon can do,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, it\u2019s hard for a company that\u2019s four people in a garage to put up a constellation.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>After dealing with challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, Project Kuiper has begun using a newly remodeled research and development facility in Redmond, Wash., Limp said. \u201cThe reason it needed dedicated facilities is, the equipment needed to test and service and build prototypes of this nature is just very different than it would be to build an Echo or even a robot for one of our fulfillment centers,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need vacuum chambers, and we need very big antennas to test the radio frequencies.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Limp said Project Kuiper started the year with about 150 employees. \u201cI think our goal to end the year is about three X that,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re kind of on that path, plus or minus a few people.\u201d Nearly 140 job openings, including 110 in Redmond, are listed on Amazon\u2019s website for Project Kuiper.<\/li>\n<li>In addition to Amazon, Bezos founded a space venture called Blue Origin \u2014 but Limp said Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn rocket would be only one of the options for putting Kuiper\u2019s satellites in orbit. \u201cWe\u2019re launch-agnostic,\u201d he said. \u201cIf somebody has a rocket out there, give us a call.\u201d He even gave a shout-out to the Raptor engines that SpaceX has developed for its Starship super-rocket. \u201cWe see a new demonstration of breakthroughs and better engines, whether that\u2019s Raptor or [Blue Origin\u2019s] BE-4, every day,\u201d he said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amazon Web Services\u2019 infrastructure, which includes satellite ground stations, could come in handy for supporting Amazon\u2019s Project Kuiper satellite broadband constellation. (AWS Photo) Amazon Web Services and the Project Kuiper satellite internet venture may be separate domains of Jeff Bezos\u2019 business empire, but even Amazon\u2019s executives admit there\u2019s a lot of potential for synergy. That\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[275,4455,4526,252,962,20,442],"class_list":["post-17612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-amazon","tag-amazon-web-services","tag-aws","tag-broadband","tag-project-kuiper","tag-satellite","tag-satellites"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17612"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}