By Charlotte
Amazon is planning to launch 3,236 satellites so it can provide fast internet to “un-served and underserved communities around the world.”
The tech giant is referring to these plans as Project Kuiper and intends to be able to serve broadband to 95 percent of the world’s population.
Project Kuiper will involve satellites placed at three different altitudes around the Earth. The first layer will consist of 784 at an altitude of 367 miles.
The second layer will feature 1,296 satellites at an altitude of 379 miles and the third and final level will be at 391 miles and consist of 1,296 satellites.
This may seem like a lot of objects floating around in space but it’s a small number compared to the 12,000 that Space X got permission to launch last year.
An Amazon spokesperson told The Verge: “Project Kuiper is a new initiative to launch a constellation of Low Earth Orbit satellites that will provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to unserved and underserved communities around the world.
“This is a long-term project that envisions serving tens of millions of people who lack basic access to broadband internet. We look forward to partnering on this initiative with companies that share this common vision.”
We don’t know when Amazon intends to send all these satellites into orbit.
The company will need to get approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) before it can launch anything.
The FCC must look into whether the satellites would cause too much congestion in the Earth’s orbit and whether Amazon has solid plans for decommissioning its satellites when they are no longer in use.
Amazon will also need to create earth stations for the satellites to communicate with.
It hasn’t announced whether it will be making the satellites itself or buying them from third parties and we don’t know how they will be launched into orbit.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos does have his own spaceflight company called Blue Origin so it’s possible that this will play a role.
