The Kuiper System’s orbital architecture is designed to maximize capacity and coverage for customers at full constellation deployment. By using overlapping altitude shells at different inclinations the constellation design minimizes total number of satellites required to spread coverage evenly across geographic latitudes and provide link diversity even when one satellite experiences an inline interference event with other systems.
First launch will get service up and running
Amazon said it will launch the 3,236 satellites in five phases and start commercial operations after a first-phase launch of 578 satellites.
“During deployment, full-time commercial service will initially be available between 39°N-56°N and 39°S-56°S latitudes,” Amazon said. “Additional deployments will expand full-time commercial service towards the equator until the Kuiper System has full-service coverage throughout the 56°N-56°S latitude range.”
Amazon said it will file separate FCC applications to operate ground stations and the customer terminals that will deliver service to homes and businesses.
“Gateway earth stations will be connected with high-speed fiber links to global Internet exchange points and point-of-presence sites to interchange traffic and reduce network hops and latency,” Amazon said.
The number of gateway earth stations “will be approximately equal to the number of active satellites serving US territory,” Amazon said. Amazon said it will install more Earth stations “in regions where higher rain fade is present” to account for signal loss, as well as along coasts “to support offshore customers.”
Each Kuiper satellite will be able to access two gateway earth stations as part of Amazon’s plan to minimize downtime. “Customers will always see a persistent connection” over a standard Ethernet interface in their homes and will be “unaware of the switching of satellites, gateways, or routes through the Kuiper System network,” Amazon said.
Amazon will have to convince the FCC that it has a sufficient plan to avoid orbital debris after satellites go out of service. Amazon said it will take less than a year to “actively decommission and deorbit” each retired satellite, allowing them to burn up in the atmosphere. Satellites will also “be deactivated automatically if all communications to ground stations cease for a pre-determined wait period.” In those cases, a “passive deorbit” that relies on atmospheric drag will take five to seven years, Amazon said.