Amazon is investing an additional $19.5 million at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center to expand its satellite operations for Project Kuiper.
Amazon is investing an additional $19.5 million to expand its satellite operations at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, the company announced on Thursday, bringing its total investment at the site to nearly $140 million.
The expansion will include a new 42,000-square-foot support facility next to the existing satellite processing building, providing more space to process and store hardware for Project Kuiper –Amazon’s plan to deploy a network of 3,232 low Earth orbit satellites.
The new facility is expected to be completed by 2025 and will create additional full-time jobs in the area. In addition to the new facility, Amazon is upgrading infrastructure at Cape Canaveral as part of its launch agreements with United Launch Alliance to support a higher frequency of satellite launches.
Amazon announced last summer that it would construct a processing facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for its Kuiper internet satellite project. The facility, expected to be completed by late 2024, will be the final stop for Amazon’s Kuiper satellites before they are launched into space. Construction plans called for a 100,000 square feet facility that features a 100-foot tall high bay clean room, which will accommodate the payload fairing of heavy-lift rockets like Blue Origin’s New Glenn and ULA’s Vulcan Centaur.
The Kuiper network aims to provide global broadband internet coverage with 3,200 low Earth-orbiting satellites, directly competing with SpaceX’s Starlink. The satellite-processing facility will play a pivotal role in preparing and integrating Kuiper satellites with rockets from Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance (ULA) before they are launched.
Amazon plans to ship its first batch of satellites for processing at the Florida facility in the second half of 2025. To meet regulatory requirements, the company is aiming to deploy at least half of the Kuiper satellite network into orbit by 2026.
Amazon also secured 77 heavy-lift launch vehicles last year to deploy its satellite constellation, most of which will be provided by U.S. launch providers Blue Origin and ULA, and launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.