Image: Amazon — the Kuiper customer terminal lineup.
Project Kuiper (now Amazon Leo)
Software Development Manager, Amazon · 2020–2022 ·
Early development, customer terminals era
From 2020 to 2022 I was a Software Development Manager on Project Kuiper —
Amazon’s satellite-internet constellation, renamed Amazon Leo in November 2025.
I led software teams during the program’s early development: the period covering
FCC approval of the 3,236-satellite constellation, the terminal antenna-architecture
breakthrough that brought terminal build cost under $400, and the maturation of the
custom-silicon and customer-terminal programs.
The first production satellites flew in 2025, and the service is now rolling out
commercially with three customer terminals — the Leo Pro, Leo Nano, and Leo
Ultra — all built around Amazon’s custom Prometheus baseband chip.
Customer terminals
Leo Pro
Standard residential / small-business terminal
11" × 11" × 1" · 5.3 lb ·
up to 400 Mbps · under $400 to produce
Leo Nano
Ultra-compact portable terminal
7" × 7" · 2.2 lb · up to 100 Mbps
Leo Ultra
High-bandwidth enterprise terminal
20" × 30" · 43 lb · up to 1 Gbps down /
400 Mbps up
Consumer hardware pricing and service plans had not been announced as of
September 2026.
Timeline
Apr 2019 — Project Kuiper publicly revealed via
FCC filings: a 3,236-satellite low-Earth-orbit constellation.
2020 — Terminal antenna-architecture milestone:
engineers hit the sub-$500 terminal-cost target.
Mar 14, 2023 — Customer terminal designs unveiled:
standard, ultra-compact, and high-bandwidth models, plus the custom Prometheus
baseband chip.
Oct 6, 2023 — Protoflight: KuiperSat-1 and
KuiperSat-2 launch on a ULA Atlas V; mission declared a success.
2024 — Satellite factory opens in Kirkland, WA
(peak capacity ~5 satellites/day).
Apr 28, 2025 — First production batch: 27
satellites (KA-01).
Sep 2025 — JetBlue becomes the first airline
customer (in-flight Wi-Fi).
Nov 13, 2025 — Project Kuiper renamed
Amazon Leo; beta waitlist opens, enterprise preview begins, and the
terminal lineup is formally named Leo Nano / Pro / Ultra.
2026 — 330+ production satellites in orbit;
wider commercial rollout underway.