Amazon will also have its constellation of satellites to distribute the internet from space at high speed: Kuiper the chosen name. After an escalation of announcements, the first two satellites for the in-orbit test will be launched at the end of 2022, a step considered indispensable by the vice president for technology Rajeev Badyal. Kuiper will have up to 3,236 satellites: this number has received the preliminary permission of the powerful FAA, the US authority for aerospace. But Amazon has already got its hands on asking for permission for another 4,500.
Constellation at the start with 500 satellites in orbit
The constellation will still begin to function when there are about 500 satellites in orbit, but the physical and technological characteristics of these objects can only be imagined. Jeff Bezos chases Elon Musk and his SpaceX into space, albeit with mixed fortunes: his New Shepard rocket took him over one hundred kilometers high, where space conventionally begins, but SpaceX has outclassed him by sending around the globe to several hours four people. In addition, Bezos lost the tender to build the first lunar lander for the Nasa Artemis program, entrusted directly to SpaceX. Now Bezos tries to make up for it by building an entire space station, a hotel for luxury tourists or researchers.
Challenge moved to space
The challenge has now shifted to the internet from space. Kuiper is in direct competition with SpaceX’s Starlink, which has between 1,300 and 1,800 satellites already active in orbit, with the OneWeb broadband system, an Anglo-Indian joint venture, which started as private and saved from bankruptcy with the intervention of States, which has 146 satellites launched out of the 648 planned, and with Telesat’s Lightspeed network, which for next year has planned to launch about 300. In the meantime, Starlink has already applied for a license for 15 thousand satellites, twice the size of Amazon. With the promise to bring the network all over the world, even in the most inaccessible areas.
Very high speed networks
The operation of these networks is no different from those already existing such as OpenSky or SkyDSL, but with a fundamental difference: the response time, or latency, to put it in a more technical term, which is promised in milliseconds and not tenths. A time that makes the difference for the internet.
How Starlink satellites work
The satellites of Starlink, and also of the other planned networks, orbit low, at about 500 kilometers, and the response time is practically instantaneous. At that altitude, however, they cannot stand still above a point, be geostationary in other words, and travel around the Earth in about 90 minutes. “However, the parabolas of the end user see a large part of the sky, about 110 degrees, so they can follow a satellite for several minutes, then the system automatically switches to the next satellite in transit”, explains Mauro Magrassi, chief technology officer of the Mix di Milan, the structure where the networks of the various providers exchange a large part of the Italian internet traffic. The satellites then download to the ground at reception antennas scattered around the world and from there connect to the global internet. Amazon, for example, has entered into an agreement with Verizon. The first data on the speed of these systems, Starlink for example, range from 150 to 600 Megabits per second.