Amazon has announced plans to construct a $120 million processing facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for its ambitious Kuiper internet satellite project. The 1,00,000 square-foot building is just one part of the company’s approximately $10 billion investment in the Kuiper initiative, which aims to deploy a network of 3,200 low Earth-orbiting satellites to provide global broadband internet coverage.

The Kuiper internet network will be a formidable competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink, envisioned by Elon Musk. Additionally, it will complement Amazon’s existing web services powerhouse. The processing facility in Florida will employ 50 staff members and serve as the final stop for Amazon’s Kuiper satellites before they are launched into space. These satellites will be manufactured at the primary Kuiper project plant located in Redmond, Washington. A ten-story-tall room in the facility will facilitate the fitting of satellites into rocket payload fairings, the protective shells surrounding the satellites atop the rockets.

According to Steve Metayer, Amazon’s vice president of Kuiper Production Operations, the company aims to ship its first batch of satellites to the Florida facility for processing in the second half of 2025. This target date will trigger a fast-paced deployment effort, with Amazon required to have half of the network in orbit by 2026, as mandated by US regulators.

To fulfill its ambitious goals, Amazon has secured 77 heavy-lift rocket launch contracts, potentially worth billions of dollars, primarily from Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin space company.

The company plans to launch a few prototype satellites into space by the end of the year, followed by mass-produced satellite launches in 2024. Testing of the service with corporate and government customers will commence in that year.

While Amazon is eligible to receive funds from a state grant for transportation-related projects, Anna Farrar, a spokeswoman for Space Florida, clarified that the company has not received any funding to date. Nonetheless, Amazon’s Kuiper project continues to propel forward, aiming to revolutionize global internet connectivity with its vast satellite network.

By Impact Lab