Playing catchupby Jeff Foust
|
| “We’ve done extensive testing on the ground to prepare for this first mission, but there are some things you can only learn in flight, and this will be the first time we’ve flown our final satellite design and the first time we’ve deployed so many satellites at once,” said Amazon’s Badyal. |
That payload was not a secret National Reconnaissance Office satellite or something along those lines, but instead the first 27 operational satellites of Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband constellation. It was only seven hours after launch—two in the morning Eastern time—that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced on social media that all 27 satellites were operating “as expected” in low Earth orbit. Rather than issue a press release about the launch, the company simply amended a prelaunch press release.
It was an oddly low-profile approach to a major milestone for both companies, who have a degree of codependency. Amazon is relying on ULA’s Atlas and, later, Vulcan rockets to deploy more than half of the Project Kuiper constellation (Arianespace’s Ariane 6 and Blue Origin’s New Glenn will launch most of the rest.) ULA is relying on Amazon as the anchor customer for Vulcan, using that launch contract to help build up its production and launch infrastructure to support a high flight rate for Amazon and other customers. And both, in different ways, are trying to catch up with SpaceX.
With last week’s Atlas launch, a mission designated KA-01, Amazon had finally started the deployment of Project Kuiper. The effort has been years in the making and included the launch of a pair of prototype satellites a year and a half ago. The operational satellites are significantly different from those prototypes.
“We have improved the performance of every system and sub-system on board, including phased array antennas, processors, solar arrays, propulsion systems, and optical inter-satellite links,” Amazon said in its prelaunch statement. “In addition, the satellites are coated in a dielectric mirror film unique to Kuiper that scatters reflected sunlight to help make them less visible to ground-based astronomers.”
Amazon has said little about the development of the Kuiper satellites, including not disclosing images of the satellites themselves. Late last week, the company released onboard footage of payload separation, revealing that the satellites are not the “flatsat” designs used by SpaceX for Starlink but instead more of a boxy shape that looked at least faintly similar to OneWeb’s first-generation satellites.
ULA, which said before launch the KA-01 mission was the heaviest payload launched on an Atlas V, revealed afterwards that the payload mass was 34,000 pounds (15,400 kilograms), which would put the upper limit on the mass of each Kuiper satellite at about 570 kilograms. (The actual satellite mass is likely slightly less, since the launch requires the use of a payload dispenser system.)
Amazon said that the satellites would be deployed in orbits at about 450 kilometers altitude, after which they would use their onboard electric propulsion to go to their final orbits at 630 kilometers. While operational, the company hinted that they were still somewhat experimental, in that this is the first launch of this design of satellites.
“We’ve done extensive testing on the ground to prepare for this first mission, but there are some things you can only learn in flight, and this will be the first time we’ve flown our final satellite design and the first time we’ve deployed so many satellites at once,” Rajeev Badyal, vice president of Project Kuiper at Amazon, said in the prelaunch statement. “No matter how the mission unfolds, this is just the start of our journey, and we have all the pieces in place to learn and adapt as we prepare to launch again and again over the coming years.”
| Last week’s launch was just the first of the year for ULA; by contrast, SpaceX has launched more than 50 Falcon 9 rockets so far this year. |
Kuiper is arguably the strongest Western competitor to Starlink’s growing dominance in satellite broadband, thanks in large part to Amazon’s significant financial resources. OneWeb, now part of Eutelsat, has struggled to win business despite having its satellite constellation fully deployed, citing delays in ground infrastructure and regulatory approvals. (On Monday, Eutelsat announced it was hiring a French telecom executive as its new CEO, who will likely be charged with raising money to help deploy a second-generation system.) Canada’s Telesat had difficulties securing funding for its Lightspeed constellation even with support from the Canadian government, scaling back the constellation.
Amazon, though, has struggled in deploying Project Kuiper. Part of that is linked to its use of new launch vehicles: Ariane 6, New Glenn, and Vulcan have flown a combined five missions, all since the beginning of 2024. Those vehicles are only now beginning to ramp up launch dates to accommodate both Amazon and other commercial and government customers.
But there have clearly been issues with Kuiper satellite production as well, since Atlas is a mature vehicle that has little left on its manifest than those Kuiper missions. Bloomberg reported last month that Amazon had produced only a “few dozen” Kuiper satellites so far, citing challenges with the advanced satellite design and supply chain issues. Amazon said only that “we will continue to increase our production, processing, and deployment rates” for Kuiper, which includes a goal of producing five satellites a day.
Amazon faces a July 2026 deadline, a condition of its FCC license, to deploy half of its 3,232-satellite constellation, a milestone it almost certainly won’t reach in time given production and launch difficulties. It can, and likely will, get an extension to that deadline, but it will serve as a reminder of the chasm between it and Starlink, which has more than 7,000 operational satellites today serving more than five million customers worldwide.
Last week’s launch was just the first of the year for ULA; by contrast, SpaceX has launched more than 50 Falcon 9 rockets so far this year. The company, though, has been busy gearing up for what will be a much higher launch rate.
In March, ULA CEO Tory Bruno told reporters the company had concluded an investigation into an anomaly on the second flight of Vulcan last October. On that flight, the nozzle on one of two solid rocket boosters came off about half a minute after liftoff, causing a slight reduction in thrust that the compensated for, still reaching its planned orbit.
Bruno said the investigation linked the anomaly to a “manufacturing defect” an internal part of the nozzle. “We have isolated the root cause and made appropriate corrective actions,” he said at a media roundtable on the sidelines of the Satellite 2025 conference.
That determination came while the company was still working with the Space Force on certification of Vulcan for national security missions. ULA had previously hoped to win that certification last fall, allowing it to begin those launches before the end of 2024, but the nozzle investigation delayed that schedule.
“We’ve completed everything that you’re supposed to do,” he said at the roundtable about ULA’s work on certification. “Typically, it’s not a very long process in the past when vehicles are certified.”
Two weeks later, ULA got that certification. The Space Force announced it completed data analysis from the two Vulcan launches last year as well as additional reviews, approving the use of the rocket for national security launches.
ULA is now gearing up for the first two of those launches, missions designated USSF-106 and USSF-87 by the Space Force. Those missions will launch a navigation test satellite and a pair of GEO space situation awareness satellites, respectively. ULA did not disclose a schedule for the launches but the Space Force said the first would take place this summer.
| “We certainly offered a proposal that could support the 60% share like we had the first time around, but I actually anticipated a greater likelihood of receiving the 40% and that is what we received,” said Bruno. |
Those launches are part of the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 contract awarded in 2020. ULA and SpaceX split those launches, with ULA getting 60% of the contracts and SpaceX 40%.
On April 4, the Space Force made another round of awards for NSSL Phase 3. The Space Force split Phase 3 into two “lanes”, with Lane 1 for less demanding missions that offered opportunities for new entrants. Lane 2 is for more demanding, risk-averse missions.
The awards made a month ago were for Lane 2. This time SpaceX got just over 50%, or 28 of 54 launches, for $5.9 billion. ULA got 19 launches for $5.4 billion, while Blue Origin won seven launches for $2.4 billion.
Bruno told reporters at Space Symposium a few days after the contract announcement that he was satisfied with the split even though ULA got a smaller fraction of the awards than in Phase 2. “We certainly offered a proposal that could support the 60% share like we had the first time around, but I actually anticipated a greater likelihood of receiving the 40% and that is what we received.”
He said getting the 60% share of the Phase 2 contracts was a “little bit of an upset” given the expectation throughout industry that SpaceX would offer a cheaper bid. “I believed this time around that they would compete that much harder and that I was not going to price dive in order to guarantee a win,” he said.
“I felt that, since I surprised them the first time, they would double down and try really hard this time, and I was confident of winning the 40%,” he said. “I turned in a bid that could have won 60%, but it didn't, and therefore it kind of came out the way we wanted.”
He noted that ULA, still a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, doesn’t have the same “levers with external investment” as his competitors. “The way we compete is by having differentiated ourselves,” he said, arguing that Vulcan is better suited for “high energy” missions beyond low Earth orbit than Falcon or New Glenn.
ULA, despite the slow start to the year, still expects to carry out about a dozen launches in 2025, split roughly evenly between Atlas and Vulcan. That includes the first Space Force launches of Vulcan this summer followed by the first Vulcan launch of Kuiper satellites in late summer. Each Vulcan launch will be able to carry 45 Kuiper satellites versus the 27 on Atlas.
The next launch, though, will likely be another Atlas launch of Kuiper satellites. “We have already begun shipping and processing satellites for our next mission: KA-02,” Amazon said before the KA-01 launch last week.
Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submitted comments will be posted.
