Amazon's first Project Kuiper test satellites are headed to space on October 6th2023-10-05 16:41 by DanielaTags: Amazon, Project Kuiper
Amazon will launch two Project Kuiper test satellites into space on Friday. The pair of satellites - dubbed KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2 - will shoot into space aboard the United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 7pm BST on 6 October. They are due to be placed in an orbit 500 kilometres above Earth's surface, to test out key components of the Kuiper mega constellation, which is planned to consist of 3200 satellites. "We've done extensive testing here in our lab and have a high degree of confidence in our satellite design, but there's no substitute for on-orbit testing," said Rajeev Badyal, Project Kuiper's vice president of technology. "This is Amazon's first time putting satellites into space, and we're going to learn an incredible amount regardless of how the mission unfolds." The Kuiper System includes three key elements: advanced LEO broadband satellites; small, affordable customer terminals; and a secure, resilient ground-based communications network. The Protoflight mission will test all three parts, along with the teams and systems that manage them. At the mission's conclusion, Amazon plans to safely deorbit both satellites, allowing them to burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Indeed, Amazon claims it has meticulously designed its satellites with space safety in mind, with provisions to prevent in-orbit collisions with other objects or satellites in low Earth orbit. As to the constellation's eventual influence on astronomy, that remains an open question. Astronomers have repeatedly sounded the alarm over satellite megaconstellations, arguing that they threaten our ability to observe the cosmos. Read more -here-
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