Amazon’s broadband-by-satellite service Project Kuiper says it will have broadband coverage in five countries by March 2026.
Ricky Freeman, president of Project Kuiper’s Kuiper Government Solutions division at Amazon, speaking at the Novaspace World Space Business Week event in Paris, told delegates that his firm would have more than 200 satellites in orbit by the end of this year. Kuiper is due to launch 27 craft on September 25th which will be added to the 102 already in orbit.
Freeman said that his greatest problem today was securing rocket launches, and said that if he could buy a slingshot that was powerful enough “I’d probably buy it!”
Kuiper is on a strict ITU-mandated deadline where it has to have half of its initial 3,232 satellites in orbit by July 2026. A second constellation of an additional 3,200 ‘next-gen’ satellites would then follow with 54 countries covered by 2028.
Since April, operational Kuiper satellites have launched aboard two Falcon 9s and two Atlas 5s. Freeman outlined “another launch in October, and another November-December to have approximately 200-plus satellites by the end of the year — not exactly where we wanted to be, but again, making great progress.”
There’s good news from the satellites already in orbit with Freeman saying that downlink speeds are reaching 1.8 Gb/s and uplinks to the satellite of 450 Mb/s.
He stressed that by the end of Q1 2026 the constellation will have a continuous coverage through and be able to offer services for the US, Canada, UK, Germany and France. By the end of 2026, he said Kuiper would be available in about 26 countries.
The service plans to be live in 54 countries in 2027, and up to 100 countries by the end of 2028.
