The company founded by Jeff Bezos says its "Project Kuiper" will provide "fast, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world.
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Amazon said Friday it will invest $120 million to build a satellite construction facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, as part of its plans to launch a space internet service to rival SpaceX's Starlink.
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The company founded by Jeff Bezos says its "Project Kuiper" will provide "fast, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world," with a constellation of more than 3,200 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO)
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We have an ambitious plan to begin Project Kuiper's full-scale production launches and early customer pilots next year, and this new facility will play a critical role," said Steve Metayer, vice president of Kuiper Production Operations
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The company has another production facility in Kirkland, Washington, where it will begin operations by the end of this year
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The units will then be sent to Florida to carry out final preparations, and integrate them with rockets from Blue Origin -- also founded by Bezos -- and United Launch Alliance (ULA) ahead of launch.
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Elon Musk's SpaceX launched the first batch of its more than 3,700 operational Starlink satellites in 2019 and is by far the biggest player.
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London-headquartered OneWeb is another early entrant in the emerging sector.
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China plans to launch 13,000 satellites as part of its GuoWang constellation, while Canada's Telesat will add 300 and German start-up Rivada is eyeing 600.
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That will be in addition to the European Union's Iris project -- 170 satellites -- and the 300-500 satellites planned to be launched by the US military's Space Development Agency.
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