Amazon will invest $120 million to build a centre to prepare Project Kuiper satellites for launch into space

Florida will be home to a spacecraft training centre for Project Kuiper. Amazon's programme is a competitor to SpaceX's Starlink, but is experiencing problems.

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The centre will appear on the territory of the Kennedy Space Center, owned by NASA. Its area will be approximately 9,300 square metres. The cost of the construction project is estimated at $120 million. It is assumed that the work will be completed within a year, and commissioning is scheduled for 2025.

Amazon has postponed the launch of satellites several times due to problems with the Vulcan Centaur rocket. Recently it became known that the company will not be able to send spacecraft into orbit until the end of this year at the earliest.

Assembly of Internet satellites will be set up at Amazon's facility in Washington state. Specialists of the centre in Florida will be engaged in checking, preparing and sending spacecraft to the payload section.

Amazon could send more than 3,000 Project Kuiper satellites into orbit. However, the agreement with the Federal Communications Commission specifies that half of the spacecraft must be operational by 2026.

In addition to United Launch Alliance (ULA), which is the operator of Vulcan Centaur, Amazon has reached an agreement with one other company. The Project Kuiper satellites will also be launched into orbit using Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket.

Source: Bloomberg