United Launch Alliance (ULA) has announced that Amazon has secured Atlas V for nine launches supporting deployment of their ambitious Project Kuiper initiative that will increase global broadband access through a constellation of 3,236 advanced satellites in LEO.
The Atlas V missions will launch from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Atlas V has long been the nation’s reliable workhorse for space launch and has been a key enabler to many critical missions for national security space, NASA and commercial customers including, GPS, SBIRS and MUOS constellations, as well as Mars Curiosity, InSight and Mars 2020 missions.
Amazon has committed more than $10 billion to deliver on its mission for Project Kuiper, which aims to make high-speed, low-latency broadband more affordable and accessible for unserved and underserved communities around the world. The project will serve individual households, as well as schools, hospitals, businesses, government agencies, and other organizations operating in places without reliable broadband.
With more than a century of combined heritage, ULA is the nation’s most experienced and reliable launch service provider. ULA has successfully delivered more than 140 missions to orbit that aid meteorologists in tracking severe weather, unlock the mysteries of our solar system, provide critical capabilities for troops in the field, deliver cutting-edge commercial services and enable GPS navigation.
“Project Kuiper will help bridge the digital divide across the United States and around the world, and we could not be more pleased to be working with Amazon to support the initiative,” said Tory Bruno, ULA’s president and CEO. “ULA is focused on serving our customer’s missions and providing reliable, innovative launch solutions. We look forward to launching these important missions.”
“We’re determined to make affordable broadband a reality for customers and communities around the world,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “ULA is a fantastic partner that’s successfully launched dozens of missions for commercial and government customers, and we’re grateful for their support of Kuiper.”
“We’ve designed our satellites and dispenser system to accommodate multiple launch vehicles – this gives us the flexibility to use many different rockets and providers to launch our satellite system,” said Rajeev Badyal, VP of technology for Project Kuiper. “Atlas V is a capable, reliable rocket, and we’re proud to be working with ULA to support these important first launches.”
“ULA takes great pride in serving our customers as their best value launch partner – from providing high confidence schedule certainty to flexible and responsive manifesting to transparent engineering collaboration on customer-specific mission design needs – we truly become one integrated team with our customers, fully dedicated to their success,” said Chris Ellerhorst, ULA director of Strategy, Business Development and Sales. “We are thrilled that Amazon has put their trust in us.”