The latest updates from Project Kuiper’s satellite test mission

On October 6 at 2:06 p.m. EDT, an Atlas V rocket from United Launch Alliance (ULA) lifted off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. It carried two prototype satellites from Amazon’s Project Kuiper, our low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband initiative, into space before deploying them at an altitude of 311 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth. The launch marked the start of our “Protoflight” mission.

Learn how small, low-cost antennas are helping Project Kuiper bring fast, affordable broadband to customers and communities around the world.

We hit our first major mission milestone at 2:53 p.m. EDT when our mission operations center in Redmond, Washington, confirmed first contact with KuiperSat-2. This is when the satellite and one of our telemetry, tracking, and control (TT&C) antennas established a telemetry link for the first time. We made first contact with KuiperSat-1 at 2:54 p.m. EDT.

First contact is one of several key steps in our Protoflight mission. It allows us to begin downlinking data on satellite health and establish more regular communications with the satellites.

“The launch today started a new phase of our Protoflight mission, and there’s a long way to go, but it’s an exciting milestone all the same,” said Rajeev Badyal, vice president of technology for Project Kuiper. “I’m tremendously grateful to the Project Kuiper team for their dedication in getting us to this point, and to our partners at United Launch Alliance who helped us deploy our first spacecraft ever into orbit.”