Amazon launches first Kuiper satellite to provide affordable internet – Dainik Savera Times

San Francisco: Amazon has launched its first two Kuiper satellites into space with the aim of providing affordable internet like Elon Musk’s Starlink. Amazon said it achieved its first major mission milestone when our Mission Operations Center in Redmond, Washington confirmed first contact with Kuipersat-2. “This happened when the satellite and one of our telemetry, tracking and control (TT&C) antennas established a telemetry link for the first time,” the company said late Friday.

‘ Around midnight on Friday, the Atlas V rocket carrying the Kuiper satellites into space was launched. It carried two prototype satellites into space before deploying them at an altitude of 500 kilometers above Earth. “Today’s launch marks the beginning of a new phase of our ‘protoflight’ mission, and there is a long way to go, but it is an exciting milestone nonetheless,” said Rajeev Badyal, vice president of technology for Project Kuiper.

‘I’m extremely grateful to the Project Kuiper team for their dedication,’ said Badyal, ‘who brought us to this point, and to our partners at United Launch Alliance, who helped us deploy our first spacecraft into orbit . First contact is one of several important steps in the ‘protoflight’ mission, the company said. ‘This allows us to start downlinking data on satellite health and establishing more regular communications with the satellites.

“At the end of the mission, the company plans to actively de-orbit both satellites before they are destroyed in the Earth’s atmosphere. The company aims to deploy more than 3,200 satellites in low Earth orbit to compete with Elon Musk’s Starlink, which currently has more than 4,000 satellites in space to provide affordable internet. Its first production satellites are on track for launch in the first half of 2024, and Amazon expects to be in beta testing with early commercial customers by the end of 2024.