Adds details on the project, company comment

Dec 2 (Reuters) – Amazon AMZN.O has signed an agreement with SpaceX to launch three of Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 rockets to support deployment plans for its Project Kuiper, the ecommerce giant said on Friday.

Kuiper is Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite broadband network designed to accommodate multiple launch providers and vehicles.

The company announced the project in 2019, the year SpaceX began deploying its first operational Starlink spacecraft. It aims to build Kuiper as a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit.

The Falcon 9 launches are targeted to lift off beginning mid-2025, Amazon said.

“We are preparing to start satellite manufacturing ahead of a full-scale deployment beginning in the first half of 2024, and we expect to have enough satellites deployed to begin early customer pilots in the second half of 2024,” the company said.

(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese and Arsheeya Bajwa; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

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Original: AMZN Feed: Amazon to launch three Falcon 9 rockets of SpaceX for Project Kuiper