Amazon's satellite venture, SpaceX's Starlink network, and other satellite firms won a total of$278.5 million in contracts from NASA on Wednesday (Apr. 20) to demonstrate communications in space as the U.S. Space Administration is planning to replace its existing satellite network in orbit with built by private systems.
NASA said on its website that by taking this approach, it will be able to devote more time and resources to deep space exploration and science missions.
The Communications Services Project (CSP) is NASA's project . Each satellite company will endeavor to reduce costs, expand flexibility, and improve performance for a variety of missions during the five-year development and demonstration phase.
The contracts allow each business to cultivate a domestic commercial SATCOM market while also allowing them to develop novel solutions that could potentially meet NASA's future mission requirements.
Kuiper Government Solutions LLC, SpaceX, Inmarsat Government Inc., SES Government Solutions, Telesat US Services LLC, and Viasat Incorporated are the six SATCOM providers who won NASA contracts.
Amazon's Project Kuiper, an organized network of over 3,000 satellites designed to beam broadband internet to remote areas, received US$67 million, while SpaceX's Starlink venture, a larger satellite-internet network with over 2,000 satellites already in space, received US$70 million.
NASA is progressively looking to rely on private space companies for its operations, and it wants to stimulate more commercial activity in areas ranging from space communications to human spaceflight.
"The idea here is really to persuade industry to partner with us and build these capabilities for clients that aren't just NASA, but other space-based clients as well," Eli Naffah, NASA's Communications Services Project manager, told Reuters.
While Starlink is still in the works, it already has thousands of customers in a variety of countries. Amazon, which is further behind schedule, plans to launch its first two prototype satellites in late 2022.
Each company expects to complete the satellite development and demonstrations by 2025. NASA stated this in a statement, about the satellites covered by the signed contracts.
Other satellite companies that have won such contracts, in addition to SpaceX and Amazon, are ViaSat, SES, Inmarsat, and Telesat. The competition is fierce and interesting. Such competition could primarily arise between Amazon, Elon Musk's SpaceX, and Telesat in the provision of broadband internet from space.
As we all know, this commercial ambition is rather costly, but it has the potential to generate billions of dollars in revenue. Analysts confirmed this possibility, stating that once the satellites are fully operational, they will be able to generate billions of dollars as expected.
