TAMPA, Fla. — Amazon is preparing to double the size of its Project Kuiper constellation to over 200 satellites this year with three more launches, supporting broadband services in the U.S. and four other countries by the end of March.
Ricky Freeman, president of the constellation’s Kuiper Government Solutions division, said Sept. 15 during World Space Business Week in Paris that the 102 satellites deployed so far are all operating nominally as they move toward final orbital positions.
“My biggest problem right now … is not the satellites,” Freeman said.
“It’s launch. I need more launch. In fact, if you have a slingshot, I’d probably buy it right about now, because we do need the resource there.”
Amazon must deploy half of its planned 3,232-satellite constellation in low Earth orbit by July under conditions tied to its Federal Communications Commission license.
While the company has a multibillion-dollar, multi-provider launch contract for the constellation, its strategy of relying primarily on new vehicles — Ariane 6, New Glenn and Vulcan — has helped drag it about a year behind schedule. Since April, operational Kuiper satellites have launched aboard two Falcon 9s and two Atlas 5s, both industry workhorses.
Nevertheless, Freeman said performance testing has exceeded expectations, with downlink speeds reaching up to 1.8 gigabits per second (Gbps) and uplinks around 450 megabits per second.
The constellation has also established 100 Gbps optical inter-satellite links in just a few seconds of acquisition, he said.
The race ahead
An Atlas 5 is slated to deploy another 27 Kuiper satellites Sept. 25. Freeman outlined “another launch in October, and another November/December to have approximately 200-plus satellites by the end of the year — not exactly where we wanted to be, but again, making great progress.”
That would put the company at around 12% of the satellites it must deploy by mid-2026. Freeman did not address the potential need for a waiver from the FCC.
By the end of the first quarter of 2026, he said the constellation “will have a continuous coverage through and be able to offer services for the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany” and France.
“By the end of 2026, we will be in approximately 26 countries,” he continued.
“We will incorporate our land and maritime mobility services in 2027 — we will have … full global coverage to the equator. About 54 countries will incorporate our aerial mobility services in 2028. We will have full global coverage, including the poles, in approximately 88 to 100 countries, and we will begin launching our Gen 2 constellation of an additional 3,200 satellites.”
Open architecture approach
Freeman pushed back against perceptions that Kuiper will be a closed system. Instead, he described an “open architecture” built around space-as-a-service, integrating third-party capabilities through waveform-agnostic connectivity, adaptive communications, hosted payloads and strategic partnerships.
“In fact, our entire business model assumes open architecture and partners around the world,” he said.
Addressing growing interest in sovereign satellite programs in Europe and elsewhere, Freeman said Kuiper sees such initiatives as complementary rather than competitive.
“You go on Amazon.com [and] you’re rarely ever buying an Amazon product,” he noted.
“You are buying the products that Amazon enables, the network that it creates. And that network is a network of networks. I see that very same capability being viable in the space domain.”
Consolidation in the cards
“There are existing constellations in space, there will be new ones — I don’t argue that point, nor do I want to hinder that point,” Freeman said.
However, he said at some point there will be a correction in the market.
“Some will stay, some will be acquired, some will merge and we will see, I think, a reset of the industry,” he added, “and that’s either a good thing or a bad thing, depending — as long as we stay focused on the capabilities, I think it may be a good thing.”
In addition to industry consolidation, he cited direct-to-device connectivity, spectrum allocation, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence as key forces shaping the satellite communications sector over the next five years, alongside the growing importance of space-based Internet of Things (IoT) and edge processing capabilities.
