Kuiper Project Has National Security Features

to loft Kuiper satellites into orbit, including using United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket shown here.

Wikipedia

Sometime later this year, probably near the holidays, AmazonAMZN will begin offering broadband internet service from orbit via its Kuiper Systems subsidiary. The project has been in development since 2019, and its first satellites were launched in October of last year.

The project is conceptionally similar to the SpaceX Starlink constellation, offering low-latency connections around the globe to billions who lack reliable internet access.

However, Kuiper is doing more than simply making high-speed internet access available from low earth orbit. It is incorporating features into its constellation of 3,236 satellites that will make the project highly resilient against electronic jamming, cyberattacks, and other threats to U.S. space assets.

The most noteworthy such feature is laser crosslinks between the satellites in the constellation, which will create a mesh network in space nearly impossible to disrupt. If satellites in the network are attacked, connections can be instantly rerouted to other nodes so that no degradation in service occurs.

This kind of resiliency is very important to the Pentagon, which has long feared that attacks against U.S. space systems might leave the joint force blind at the onset of war.

The Kuiper architecture makes that much less likely, and the government is already investigating how it might take advantage of the new system to bolster U.S. defenses.

Amazon, a contributor to my think tank, successfully demonstrated how the laser crosslinks would operate on its first two satellites last fall, moving 100 gigabits of data per second.

That’s a hundred billion bits, and each satellites in the system will be connected at that level of functionality. The link architecture is all the more remarkable because Kuiper satellites will operate in nearly a hundred orbital planes, with each satellite moving at 25,000 kilometers per hour.

Data moves about 30% faster through the vacuum of space than it does through terrestrial fiber, so Kuiper’s mesh network will move vast amounts of information at speeds not feasible on the Earth’s surface.

But that is just the beginning of how Kuiper could provide a unique resource to commercial, civil and military users. The project has developed a family of customer terminals that is smaller and lighter than other such systems, with throughputs ranging from 100 megabits per second to a gigabit per second.

The latter, high-end terminal, would likely be the one favored by military and corporate users. The 100 mbps terminal is more than adequate for any residential use, but also can easily be adapted for use at the tactical edge where warfighters often have difficulty securing adequate connectivity.

The Kuiper system will utilize a dozen ground stations that are part of the Amazon Web Services infrastructure. The ground stations assure that satellites stay in proper position using electric propulsion that Amazon developed for each satellite, and provide links to the terrestrial internet network.

But thanks to the laser crosslinks between the satellites, Kuiper is not confined to serving customers near ground stations. It can link directly to previously disadvantaged users, such as warships far out to sea and aircraft traversing remote land masses.

Like the crosslinks in space, the signals between satellites and surface users would be very difficult to for an adversary to jam or intercept. Kuiper has leveraged lessons learned from Amazon’s cloud computing business to assure the network is protected from cyber intrusions.

Although Kuiper is a primarily a commercial venture assembled using $10 billion in Amazon capital, it is already in talks with the U.S. Space Force about how its system can supplement military satellites to assure wartime connectivity for the joint force.

At the very least, it will provide an alternative to, and competition for, the Starlink system that has proven so useful in opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

There is, however, one potential obstacle to realizing this vision. Outdated federal policies concerning spectrum sharing need to be adjusted to facilitate introduction of the system, and other operators of satellites in low earth orbit are resisting the changes.

The details are complicated, but it’s pretty clear that companies like SpaceX do not welcome the arrival of a competitor with deep pockets such as Amazon. Starlink is already experiencing some softness in customer demand, so a similar service with low prices and novel features would be problematic for SpaceX.

Nonetheless, modifying current spectrum policy is the easiest way to inject competition into a sector destined to transform global commerce and culture. Enabling Kuiper to achieve its full potential is thus desirable for both economic and security reasons.

Disclosure: As noted above, Amazon is a contributor to my think tank, the Lexington Institute.

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