Why Is Amazon Building a Warehouse at the Kennedy Space Center?

The latest Amazon warehouse is somewhere you’d never expect—the Space Florida Launch and Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center. But this isn’t a normal warehouse. Instead, it’s a processing facility for Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellites, which will soon be launched into orbit.

Project Kuiper is the Amazon version of SpaceX’s Starlink. It’s a satellite internet service, and its goal is to reach customers in remote and underserved areas. The FCCrecently approvedAmazon’s Project Kuiper deployment plan under the condition that Amazon places 1,600 satellites into orbit by mid-2026

So, Amazon is racing to get Project Kuiper up and running. It already has asatellite manufacturing facilityin Washington, and now, it’s building a processing facility at the world’s most famous space center. The ambitious 100,000-square-foot building is one of Amazon’s largest investments in Project Kuiper, and it will create some interesting job opportunities for those in Brevard County.

This processing facility will receive satellites from the Washington manufacturing facility. From there, it will prepare the satellites for deployment. Large rockets, such as the Blue Origin New Glenn, will also be housed in the facility’s 100-foot-tall high bay clean room. (For reference, SpaceX also has a facility in Cape Canaveral, though it’s located at the Space Force Station.)

Related:Amazon’s Kuiper Home Internet Aims for a Lower Price Than Starlink

Note that the Launch and Landing Facility (formerly the Shuttle Landing Facility) was first used for NASA’s Shuttle Columbia in 1979. It’s recently been converted into a runway for commercial space companies (that’s why it’s managed by Space Florida). It’s one of the longest runways in the world, and it’s regularly used for both mission deployment and testing. (Funnily enough, some automotive companies use this runway to test vehicle aerodynamics.)

Amazon will make its first Project Kuiper launch tests later this year. Deployment is scheduled for 2024, with the goal of offering satellite internet service one year later.

Bear in mind that SpaceX already offers satellite internet with its Starlink service—Project Kuiper is the first true SpaceX competitor, but it’s a bit late to the game. But Kuiper is aiming for a lower price than Starlink, and because it’s associated with Amazon, it will surely offer some stiff competition.