Amazon’s Project Kuiper is building a satellite processing facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, creating 50 new jobs.
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The $120 million project is the latest long-term investment in Project Kuiper, Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite network that offers broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world.
The new satellite processing facility in Florida will be used to receive satellite shipments, conduct final preparations ahead of launches, connect satellites to custom dispensers from beyond gravity and integrate the loaded dispensers with launch vehicles, Amazon announced Friday.
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The 100,000-square-foot facility will include a 100-foot-tall bay clean room for payload fairing of new heavy-lift rockets like Blue Origin’s New Glenn and United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur.
"We have an ambitious plan to begin Project Kuiper’s full-scale production launches and early customer pilots next year, and this new facility will play a critical role in helping us deliver on that timeline," said Steve Metayer, vice president of Kuiper Production Operations.
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"We are proud to partner with Space Florida to bolster the growing space industry in Florida and elsewhere across the United States, and we look forward to adding more talent to our skilled operations and manufacturing team," he added. "These employees will play an important part in our mission to connect tens of millions of customers worldwide."
According to Amazon, the facility marks another investment into the U.S. space and satellite industry, and in the state of Florida.
To date, Amazon has secured 77 heavy-lift launch vehicles 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.
