![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/amazonlaunchers.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
None of the three rockets Amazon selected to launch the bulk of its Kuiper constellation have flown.<\/p>\n
Credit:
\n Amazon<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
Amazon is helping to fund a big expansion in ULA\u2019s footprint at its Florida launch base, an effort that will double the ULA\u2019s launch capacity. The investment to fund the growth in ULA\u2019s capability to support Kuiper launches totals about $2 billion, with around $500 million going toward upgrades at Cape Canaveral.<\/p>\n
Those upgrades include the outfitting of a second vertical hangar and a second mobile launch platform for Vulcan rockets, alongside the integration facility and launch table already built to support the first few Vulcan missions. Having dual lanes for launch processing in Florida will allow ULA to fly as many as 25 Vulcan rockets per year, the company says.<\/p>\n
ULA and its subcontractors are also expanding factory space at locations around the country to produce more Vulcan engines, solid rocket boosters, and payload fairings for the Kuiper missions.<\/p>\n
,<\/p>\n
Amazon and ULA officials hope these investments will spare the Vulcan rocket from the growing pains experienced by other launch vehicles as they enter service. For example, it took 31 months for the Atlas V rocket to reach its fifth flight in the early 2000s. A decade ago, SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 made its fifth flight 33 months after its inaugural launch.<\/p>\n
That won\u2019t do if Amazon is going to deploy more than 1,600 Kuiper satellites by mid-2026. Amazon, which is building the Kuiper satellites in Kirkland, Washington, intentionally designed the spacecraft to fit on a range of launch vehicles. In July, an Amazon official told Ars that the company had a big appetite for launch and didn\u2019t rule out signing contracts with other launch providers. At the time, the official said SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 could not lift as many Kuiper satellites on a single flight as ULA\u2019s Vulcan.<\/p>\n
Amazon\u2019s Project Kuiper is one of several satellite \u201cmegaconstellations\u201d at various stages of development to provide low-latency broadband connectivity to consumers, governments, and corporate customers around the world. SpaceX\u2019s Starlink is the biggest of the group, and one of two (along with OneWeb) low-Earth orbit constellations currently providing commercial Internet service.<\/p>\n
But once again, SpaceX has proved it will happily take money from its competitors to launch their satellites. OneWeb turned to SpaceX to launch its broadband satellites after losing access to Russian rockets in the aftermath of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. Other communications satellite operators that compete with Starlink, including Viasat and SES, have launched their spacecraft on SpaceX rockets.<\/p>\n
Northrop Grumman tapped SpaceX to launch three of its Cygnus supply freighters to the International Space Station as it redesigns its own rocket, the Antares, to replace Russian engines with US-made engines. Northrop Grumman and SpaceX use separate systems to deliver cargo to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n
Dec. 1, 2023: This story was updated with comments from Caleb Henry of Quilty Space.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amazon announced Friday that it has purchased three Falcon 9 rocket launches from SpaceX beginning in mid-2025 to help deploy the retail giant\u2019s network of Kuiper Internet satellites. In a statement, Amazon said the SpaceX launches will provide \u201cadditional capacity\u201d to \u201csupplement existing launch contracts to support Project Kuiper\u2019s satellite deployment schedule.\u201d SpaceX has its own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45679,"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":[9472,1045,479,1046,25,962,316],"class_list":["post-45676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-amazon-2","tag-elon-musk","tag-falcon-9","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-launch","tag-project-kuiper","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45676"}],"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=45676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}