Rocket fairing with Amazon Kuiper satellites before the Kuiper 1 mission. Photo: Amazon

Amazon’s satellite constellation, Project Kuiper, has signed a satellite coordination agreement with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to reduce the impact of astronomical science. 

The agreement announced Thursday has a number of areas of coordination between NSF and Project Kuiper addressing optical astronomy and radio astronomy. NSF has similar agreements with SpaceX for Starlink and AST SpaceMobile. Project Kuiper’s license with the FCC requires coordination with NSF. 

Project Kuiper has agreed to reduce the optical brightness of satellites through physical design changes, attitude maneuvering and other methods and to provide high-precision orbital information to astronomers.

It also includes ongoing technical work to protect radio astronomy activities in certain spectrum bands by implementing dynamic beam avoidance. 

“We appreciate Project Kuiper and other commercial satellite companies working with NSF to help maintain our ability to explore the wonders of our universe through the unique capabilities of astronomical research facilities worldwide,” says Chris Smith, interim director of the NSF Division of Astronomical Sciences.

Amazon noted that there has been months of technical collaboration between Kuiper and teams at the NSF National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory and NSF National Radio Astronomy Observatory to incorporate feedback from the astronomy community.

“This agreement underscores our commitment to responsible space operations and our belief that satellite broadband and ground-based astronomy can successfully coexist, and we look forward to continuing that work as we deploy our full satellite constellation,” commented Chris Hofer, head of International Spectrum Management and Strategy at Project Kuiper.