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Exciting News: Amazon has successfully tested the Project Kuiper satellites and is ready to launch its commercial-grade internet broadband service into space. Using lasers, this satellite constellation will provide a fast, reliable, error-free connection around the world.
While Elon Musk’s Starlink is losing federal funding, Amazon is “firing” its space lasers aboard Project Kuiper’s satellites. Amazon’s confidential optical inter-satellite link (OISL) technology has been successfully demonstrated, transmitting data between the two prototype satellites orbiting Earth (KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2).
OISL will play a central role in Project Kuiper, Amazon explains, as it will offer advanced, reliable, and fast communication capabilities without relying on ground infrastructure. OISLs use infrared lasers to directly send data between the satellites as they orbit Earth.
Once complete, the OISL lasers will establish high-speed laser cross-links, acting like an optical mesh network in space. Amazon has concluded “multiple successful demonstrations” of OISL terminals aboard KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2, maintaining 100 gigabits per second (Gbps) links over a distance of nearly 1,000 kilometers during the entire test window.
Amazon says that these tests have validated the final component of Project Kuiper’s communication architecture, meaning that the OISL system will be operational and ready to fire lasers in space on the network’s first production satellites. Initial launches are set for the first half of 2024, with the entire Project Kuiper’s fleet expected to include 3,200 satellites by 2029.
Effectively using lasers for satellite-to-satellite communications presents considerable challenges, but Amazon is confident that the state-of-the-art optics and control systems designed for Project Kuiper can address them all. The orbital laser mesh network can move data approximately 30% faster than terrestrial fiber optic cables, leveraging Amazon’s AWS cloud infrastructure to efficiently route data traffic.
Project Kuiper intends to bring secure, resilient internet connectivity to a wide range of enterprise and public sector customers, especially in regions with no reliable ground stations available nearby. Amazon envisions a cruise liner in the middle of the ocean or an aircraft on a transatlantic flight securely uplinking data from any location on Earth.
