SAN FRANCISCO, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Amazon on Tuesday announced agreements with Arianespace, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance (ULA) to provide heavy-lift launch services for Project Kuiper, Amazon's initiative to increase global broadband access using a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).

       The contracts total up to 83 launches over a five-year period, providing capacity for Amazon to deploy the majority of its 3,236-satellite constellation. It is the largest commercial procurement of launch vehicles in history, the announcement said.

       "Project Kuiper will provide fast, affordable broadband to tens of millions of customers in unserved and underserved communities around the world," said Dave Limp, Senior Vice President for Amazon Devices & Services.

       Project Kuiper aims to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband to a wide range of customers, including individual households, schools, hospitals, businesses, government agencies, disaster relief operations, mobile operators, and other organizations working in places without reliable internet connectivity, according to Amazon.

       Project Kuiper will leverage Amazon's global logistics and operations footprint, as well as Amazon Web Services' (AWS) networking and infrastructure, to serve a diverse, global customer base, it added.

       "Securing launch capacity from multiple providers has been a key part of our strategy from day one," said Rajeev Badyal, Vice President of Technology for Project Kuiper at Amazon. "These large, heavy-lift rockets also mean we can deploy more of our constellation with fewer launches, helping simplify our launch and deployment schedule."

       Suppliers from 49 U.S. states help develop and manufacture the next-generation, heavy-lift launch vehicles from Blue Origin and ULA, while Arianespace relies on ArianeGroup's network of suppliers from 13 European countries to produce its Ariane 6 rocket, according to the announcement.