Prediction: Amazon.com Will Lose Money on Project Kuiper
In 2019, Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced its next big business idea. Following in the footsteps of SpaceX founder Elon Musk and his Starlink satellite internet system, Amazon would build a competing satellite internet business: Project Kuiper.
The plan calls for the deployment of 3,236 satellites, which will require 92 separate rocket launches to put them in orbit. Yet this massive undertaking will actually be smaller in scope than Starlink, which will eventually boast 12,000 satellites, and will need to launch more than 100 times a year just to refresh its constellation as old satellites fall out of orbit. Even so, Amazon initially estimated the cost of Project Kuiper would be roughly similar to the $10 billion that Musk said it would cost SpaceX to create Starlink.
There's just one problem with that: It turns out Amazon may have been wrong. Deploying the Kuiper constellation might cost it as much as twice that amount.
Source Fool.com
