WASHINGTON — Amazon’s satellite internet company, Project Kuiper, is forging ties with the defense sector, signaling a strategic push beyond commercial broadband into government and military communications.
Kuiper Government Solutions (KGS), a subsidiary of Project Kuiper, has partnered with defense contractor L3Harris Technologies to shape satellite payloads that meet the standards of military and public safety users.
The Project Kuiper full constellation — planned to exceed 3,200 low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites — is still far from completion. But despite it being in its early deployment phase — having launched its first 27 satellites just yesterday — L3Harris’ president of communication systems Sam Mehta said the company sees key advantages in partnering at this stage of development.
“We can actually get in on the ground floor and help influence some of the requirements since they’re at the beginning of their launch cycle,” Mehta said during a media briefing April 29. “This is the right time to be able to go and influence those requirements.”
AWS cloud a key advantage
The collaboration is part of Amazon’s wider strategy to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink and the military product, Starshield, which continues to capture market share. Amazon brings what Mehta called a differentiator: Amazon Web Services (AWS), the parent company’s cloud infrastructure arm.
Mehta said the integration of a satellite network with Amazon’s AWS cloud infrastructure would be significant, providing not just communications but also enabling advanced data processing and analysis capabilities.
This technology will enable soldiers in the field, for example, to have access to critical intelligence via handheld radios, “having the same security and resilience and encryption that they would if they were operating in a closed tactical network,” Mehta said.
A key focus of the collaboration is developing encrypted communications with “guaranteed landing rights”—addressing concerns from international governments about data sovereignty and security. According to Mehta, “Kuiper has been very good at making sure that data stays protected, and that there’s sovereign control over that data.”
L3Harris is currently developing hybrid terminals for the U.S. Air Force that can link both to traditional military satellites and to commercial networks, including the Kuiper system, seeking redundancy that the Pentagon views as critical to battlefield communications.
“We are pleased to be working with L3Harris,” Rick Freeman, president of KGS, said in a news release announcing the partnership with L3Harris. “Our collaboration in satellite communications and defense technology will provide customers with global communications capabilities, higher resiliency and improved security.”
