{"id":18098,"date":"2019-04-05T20:33:08","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T12:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/amazon-lists-more-than-70-jobs-in-bellevue-not-seattle-for-project-kuiper-satellite-operation\/"},"modified":"2019-04-05T20:33:08","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T12:33:08","slug":"amazon-lists-more-than-70-jobs-in-bellevue-not-seattle-for-project-kuiper-satellite-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/amazon-lists-more-than-70-jobs-in-bellevue-not-seattle-for-project-kuiper-satellite-operation\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon lists more than 70 jobs in Bellevue \u2014\u00a0not Seattle \u2014 for Project Kuiper satellite operation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jeff
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, speaks at the Satellite 2017 conference in Washington, D.C. (Via Satellite Magazine via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boy, that escalated quickly: Just hours after GeekWire revealed that Amazon is planning a 3,236-satellite constellation to provide global broadband access, code-named Project Kuiper, the company posted scores of job openings for the new space venture.<\/p>\n

Virtually all of the 73 Kuiper-related jobs listed on Amazon\u2019s website are in Bellevue, Wash. One exception is a Seattle opening for a senior corporate counsel specializing in international trade and export control.<\/p>\n

The timing is notable given Amazon\u2019s decision to relocate its worldwide operations team from Seattle to Bellevue \u2014 a decision that seems to signal that the tech giant is cooling on its hometown.<\/p>\n

Most of the openings are for engineers specializing in antennas, systems modeling, flight software, semiconductor and hardware design, satellite and spacecraft design, communication systems and flight software. The Seattle area has become a hotbed for such jobs, thanks to aerospace stalwarts such as Boeing and Aerojet Rocketdyne as well as newer entrants including Spaceflight Industries, Stratolaunch, LeoStella, Tethers Unlimited and dearly departed Planetary Resources.<\/p>\n

Taken together, Amazon\u2019s listings support the view that the company has been thinking about Project Kuiper for quite some time \u2014 but that a lot of the details still have to be filled in, with a rapid ramp-up in the works.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a huge need to serve the estimated 4 billion people around the world who currently lack high-speed internet connections. But Amazon will have to move quickly to catch up with other ventures that went public years ago with their plans for satellite broadband networks.<\/p>\n

For example, it\u2019s been more than four years since SpaceX CEO Elon Musk came to Seattle to lay out his plans for what\u2019s now known as the Starlink satellite internet service. Musk\u2019s big reveal set the stage for SpaceX to establish a satellite development facility in Redmond, Wash., to lead the charge for Starlink. SpaceX could start offering service as early as the 2020-2021 time frame, assuming it\u2019s successful in its campaign to put hundreds of satellites in low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

The international OneWeb consortium is working on a similar time frame. Canada\u2019s Telesat is also a front runner in the satellite broadband race.<\/p>\n

Satellite constellations in low Earth orbit, or LEO, are thought to represent the next frontier for low-latency, high-bandwidth, low-cost connectivity. But in the wake of Amazon\u2019s announcement, some observers are wondering whether there are too many mega-constellations on the drawing board \u2014 and whether Amazon is joining the party too late.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jxnH9NW3U9g<\/p>\n

Lots of details are still under wraps. Tren Griffin, a senior director of strategy at Microsoft who\u2019s also a veteran of telecom ventures, mused over which radio frequency Project Kuiper might pick. \u201cI suspect Amazon will file for Ka band, but some businesses are filing in ever-higher frequency bands like V,\u201d he tweeted.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Secure World Foundation\u2019s Brian Weeden voiced concern over Project Kuiper\u2019s potential impact on orbital debris. He noted that current international guidelines call for LEO satellite operators to dispose of their spacecraft safely within 25 years of mission completion.<\/p>\n

\u201cReading through their ITU applications, it seems Amazon plans to leave all these satellites up for nearly the full 25 years,\u201d Weeden tweeted. \u201cThat\u2019s not very good for space sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amazon will have to address issues such as orbital debris management and non-interference with other satellites as it goes through the arduous process of seeking licenses from the Federal Communications Commission and other regulatory agencies around the world.<\/p>\n

Project Kuiper will also have to determine how its satellites will be launched.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Jeff Bezos only a few years after he started up Amazon, would be a natural candidate.<\/p>\n

Maxime Puteaux, a satellite industry analyst who\u2019s a senior consultant at Paris-based Euroconsult, noted in a tweet that Project Kuiper could turn Amazon into a \u201ccaptive-by-design customer\u201d for Blue Origin. But publicly held Amazon would have to guard against self-dealing, and ensure that its shareholders would be well-served by transferring funds to Bezos\u2019 privately held venture. It\u2019s not out of the question for Amazon to partner with other launch providers.<\/p>\n

If Project Kuiper comes to fruition, would Amazon, SpaceX, OneWeb, Telesat and other broadband players be chasing after the same customers in remote or underdeveloped regions of the world? Or would there be market segmentation?<\/p>\n

You could argue that the biggest users of Amazon\u2019s satellites will be \u2026 Amazon and its customers.<\/p>\n

For example, Prime Video could offer streaming services worldwide via satellite (which could provide an edge over Netflix). The ability to provide cloud computing services to virtually anywhere in the world would be an attractive differentiator for Amazon Web Services (which already has a cloud-based platform for satellite management known as AWS Ground Station). And a global data network would make it a lot easier for Amazon to manage drones, robotic ground vehicles and all the other next-generation delivery channels it\u2019s developing.<\/p>\n

When you add the potential for taking orders and serving ads via a ubiquitous internet service, Project Kuiper looks less like a far-out fantasy and more like the final frontier for commerce. Amazon isn\u2019t posting any job openings for satellite service marketers yet, but it\u2019s probably only a matter of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, speaks at the Satellite 2017 conference in Washington, D.C. (Via Satellite Magazine via YouTube) Boy, that escalated quickly: Just hours after GeekWire revealed that Amazon is planning a 3,236-satellite constellation to provide global broadband access, code-named Project Kuiper, the company posted scores of job openings […]<\/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":[275,962,20,442],"class_list":["post-18098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-amazon","tag-project-kuiper","tag-satellite","tag-satellites"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18098"}],"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=18098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}