Project Kuiper launched its first two satellites into space on an Atlas V rocket from United Launch Alliance (ULA) on October 6, marking the start of the Kuiper Protoflight mission. The mission aims to validate the system design and network performance. Engineers have collected critical data from the mission. 

Rajeev Badyal, the Vice President of Technology for Project Kuiper, stated, "There's plenty of work ahead, but at this point in the mission, I'm thrilled to report that KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2 are operating nominally. The two satellites are stable in orbit, harvesting energy from the sun, and communicating across all links from Earth to space and space to Earth. We’re already learning a lot from this mission that will inform further improvements to our production systems, and the team should be very proud of this milestone.”

A complete end-to-end test of the data network will be carried out by Amazon. This test will involve transmitting data from the internet to a test site's AWS-powered ground network, then sending the data to prototype satellites, and finally sending the data to a client terminal antenna. It is anticipated that the initial satellites for Project Kuiper will be deployed into space during the first half of 2024, and production of those spacecraft will get underway in Kirkland, Washington, prior to the end of this calendar year. The anticipated date for the beginning of beta testing with early commercial customers is the second half of the year 2024.

"It is very encouraging to see this advanced network start to come together," according to Badyal. Quite encouragingly, "It gives me a lot of hope that we can make a real difference in giving unserved and underserved communities access to high speed internet connectivity."