Photo: Amazon
Amazon has unveiled three different satellite antennas for its satellite internet Project Kuiper, which is an attempt to rival SpaceX’s Starlink low-Earth orbit (LEO) internet (via CNBC).
The “standard” dish measures about an inch thick, 11 inches square and it weighs less than 5 pounds. Amazon expects the dish to offer users speeds of “up to 400 megabits per second (Mbps).”
The company is also offering an “ultra-compact” dish, measuring about 7 inches square, weighing only about a pound, and offering speeds up to 100 Mbps.
Finally, the “pro” dish model measures 19 by 30 inches, offering higher-bandwidth service connectivity of up to “1 gigabit per second (Gbps).
I took a closer look at Amazon’s ultra-compact satellite antenna, and this thing is tiny: https://t.co/iDwoWDRdHK #satshow pic.twitter.com/9HFz3GpJea
— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) March 14, 2023
“Every technology and business decision we’ve had has centered on what will deliver the best experience for different customers around the world, and our range of customer terminals reflect those choices,” said Rajeev Badyal, Project Kuiper’s VP of Technology.
The company also says its standard satellite, dubbed a customer terminal, will cost under $400 per unit to produce.
The company’s LEO constellation was approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2020, after the company said it planned to invest over $10 billion into Project Kuiper. Additionally, the company is looking to build a constellation made up of 3,236 satellites.
Amazon last year announced plans to work with SpaceX rivals on launching as many as 83 missions in the next half of a decade, with launch contracts in place from United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and Amazon’s own Blue Origin.
Amazon Urges FCC to Limit SpaceX’s Starlink Expansion https://t.co/G5Ze9z3faN
— TeslaNorth.com (@RealTeslaNorth) June 28, 2022
