KIRKLAND, Wash. — Amazon gave U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and other VIPs a sneak peek at the company’s Project Kuiper satellite factory, where thousands of spacecraft are to be manufactured for a global broadband network.
Today’s event included remarks by local officials as well as a ribbon-cutting ceremony — but access to sensitive areas of the 172,000-square-foot facility was limited due to concerns about confidentiality and export control requirements.
The factory, which quietly began operations in April, serves as the manufacturing hub for Amazon’s satellite project. Work is also being done at Project Kuiper’s 219,000-square-foot headquarters in nearby Redmond.
Last year, Amazon successfully tested two Redmond-built prototype satellites in orbit. Now full-scale manufacturing is ramping up in Kirkland, with the first completed production satellites due to be shipped to Florida this summer.
Cantwell noted that the state’s aerospace sector is a $70 billion industry that supports 250,000 jobs, and said that the Project Kuiper factory will add to Washington’s technological prowess.
“We like to say we’re the Silicon Valley of space here in Puget Sound,” she said. “And Kirkland now is joining the fight, helping us deliver not just better service, but a skilled workforce and great attention to how the United States is going to be very competitive in space communication.”
The grand opening was marked by a spirit of neighborliness. “We are so very grateful that this amazing facility is with the City of Kirkland. Amazon’s choice to manufacture satellites here in Kirkland is an incredible investment in our community,” Kirkland Mayor Kelli Curtis said.
Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice president of public policy and community engagement, was grateful as well. He welcomed Cantwell, Curtis and the other VIPs to the factory.
“We want to thank all of these partners and officials for your commitment to closing the digital divide and recognizing that all broadband technologies are needed to reach all corners of this state,” Huseman said. “Now the space industry is growing, and it’s critical to prepare our next generation for the jobs of the future. That’s happening right here in Washington. Project Kuiper is creating an entirely new category of advanced manufacturing in Amazon’s home state.”
Amazon says more than 120 employees have already been hired to work at the factory, and the facility’s workforce is projected to grow to 200. In all, more than 2,000 employees are said to be working on Project Kuiper at Puget Sound locations — mostly in Redmond, but also in Kirkland and Bellevue.
Project Kuiper is also setting up a 184,000-square-foot logistics center in Everett, Wash., that’s expected to employ another 200 skilled workers. And it’s partnering with Lake Washington Institute of Technology in Kirkland to support training programs for satellite technicians.
Steve Metayer, Project Kuiper’s vice president of production operations, said Amazon chose Kirkland as the site of the satellite factory because of its proximity to the core design and engineering teams in Redmond. Having so much of the Project Kuiper supply chain in the same neck of the woods is also “allowing us to reduce the test time from months to a matter of days for each individual satellite,” he said.
The first full-scale Kuiper mission is scheduled for launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in the fourth quarter of this year. Further deployments will follow, with launches provided by ULA, Blue Origin and SpaceX in Florida, plus Arianespace in French Guiana.
Metayer said the Project Kuiper team is on track to begin offering broadband service to customers in 2025. Under the terms of Amazon’s license from the Federal Aviation Administration, half of the planned 3,232 satellites must be deployed by mid-2026, with the rest due to be placed into low Earth orbit by 2029.
Those are ambitious targets to hit — and to hit them, Amazon plans to ramp up operations in Kirkland to build up to five satellites per day. That’s close to the six-a-day pace that SpaceX says it can reach at its Starlink satellite manufacturing facility in Redmond, which is about a 20-minute drive away.
Starlink already has more than 6,000 satellites in orbit and more than 3 million subscribers around the globe. Yet another satellite operator, Eutelsat OneWeb, is building up its broadband network in league with an array of partners.
To close the gap, Amazon has enlisted its own league of partners, including Verizon in the U.S., Vodafone and Vodacom in Europe and Africa, NTT and SKY Perfect JSAT in Japan and Vrio Corp. in South America. They’re all depending on Project Kuiper to deliver new options for high-speed connectivity — and Metayer voiced confidence that the newly opened Kirkland factory will do its part.
“These are some of the most advanced communication satellites ever built, and we want to ensure every Project Kuiper spacecraft we launch meets our standards for performance, reliability and safety,” he said. “Building one or two is incredibly complex. Building four or five a day is exponentially hard. But the team is making incredible progress, as you’ve seen today. We’re building and testing flight hardware at this facility as we speak.”
Other highlights and sidelights from today’s opening:
- Leaders of the Project Kuiper team downplayed the idea that they were in a race with SpaceX’s Starlink network. Huseman said that there’ll be opportunities for multiple winners in the satellite broadband market. “Me, I just worry about building our satellites,” Metayer said. “That’s my role, to build a facility out.”
- Would Amazon market Project Kuiper to consumers, or would it leave that job to its telecom partners? Huseman hedged when answering the question. “There are going to be a variety of offerings you have, based upon your customer needs,” he said. “We will have more information to share about how that will work as we get closer to launch.”
- Cantwell appeared to make a veiled reference to Boeing’s woes when she referred to Amazon’s approach to doing high-quality aerospace manufacturing at production rates typically associated with the automotive industry. “There’s somebody else around here that needs to learn from this kind of build quality in the process,” she said.
- Like many large Amazon facilities, the Kirkland factory includes a cafeteria (“Stratos”) as well as a space for meditation and a room for mothers. A bookshelf in a lobby area highlights books by science-fiction authors including Ted Chiang (“Arrival”), Cixin Liu (“The Three-Body Problem”), Frank Herbert (“Dune”) and Kim Stanley Robinson (Mars Trilogy).
Check out these images from the factory, all provided by Amazon:
This report has been updated with information from the ribbon-cutting ceremony and images from Amazon.
