The first 27 satellites in Amazon’s effort to create a space-based web community have lastly made it to orbit, paving the way in which for the corporate to aim to compete with Elon Musk’s well-established Starlink service.
A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket lifted off late Monday from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, delivering the satellites into orbit across the Earth. They are the primary batch of what’s anticipated to be a complete of three,226 Kuiper satellites within the community.
Even that will pale compared to Musk’s community. Starlink already consists of greater than 8,000 satellites, which have been thrust into house by 250 completely different SpaceX launches. The service now has greater than 5 million customers.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has mentioned there may be “room for plenty of winners” within the satellite tv for pc web house, and his firm has claimed it’s extra targeted on “unserved and underserved communities world wide.”
Amazon is meant to launch the primary half of the community by mid-2026, a deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission. The CEO of the ULA instructed Reuters that there might be as many as 5 extra Kuiper launches this 12 months. But the Kuiper challenge is reportedly working via manufacturing issues, which might hamper progress in direction of its objective of filling out the constellation.
