Project Kuiper facing regulatory deadline
March 19, 2025
The massive Amazon-backed broadband-by-satellite system, Project Kuiper, is potentially going to miss its regulatory obligations according to reports. It seems that comments made at the recent Satellite 2025 show in Washington suggest that shortage of rocket launch availability will impact Kuiper’s availability.
On March 11th, Kuiper updated the Federal Communications Commission with a small reduction of the constellation’s number of craft to be orbited. Kuiper now says it only wants 7,736 satellites, down 38 from its earlier plan.
Back in July 2020, Kuiper received authorisation for an initial constellation of 3,236 craft, but with the requirement that at least 50 per cent (now 1,616) must be in orbit by July 30th 2026. The remaining 50 per cent must be orbiting by July 30th 2029. Other than a couple of test satellites (Tintin 1 and 2, in 2023) there have been no launches.
The obligatory FCC date now looks like proving to be a challenge.
Logistically, Kuiper is facing a nightmare. It reserved nine launches on the huge Atlas 5 Vulcan Centaur rocket from United Launch Alliance, but the rocket has not flown since January 2024.
Kuiper tapped its own Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin rocket company and its New Glenn version to handle 27 launches. New Glenn flew in January and successfully reached orbit, but the booster failed its landing. A second flight is likely in “late spring”. But ramping up production to handle 27 sets of cargo looks like a challenge.
Kuiper’s third option is with Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket. Ariane 6 made its commercial debut on March 6th, but its next flight won’t be until July, although Arianespace talks of using the more powerful Ariane 64 version towards the end of this year for a cargo of Kuiper satellites.
Kuiper’s fourth decision was to book three flights on arch-rival Elon Musk’s SpaceX. SpaceX has made no secret of its rocket availability, and it could increase the number of rockets available for clients – including Kuiper. SpaceX is planning around 170 launches this year.
In other words, there’s a definite lack of launch vehicles for Kuiper’s use other than SpaceX. This might be the basis of Kuiper’s potential appeal to the International Telecommunications Union (and the FCC) to permit its launch obligatory date to be delayed.
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