A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today (April 28) at 7:01 p.m. EDT (2301 GMT), carrying 27 of Amazon's "Project Kuiper" broadband spacecraft toward low Earth orbit (LEO).

It was the first of more than 80 planned launches to build out the Project Kuiper megaconstellation, which will eventually harbor more than 3,200 spacecraft.

That's a big number, but it won't set a record; SpaceX's Starlink broadband network, which already beams service down to customers around the world, currently consists of more than 7,200 operational spacecraft.

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/amazon-launches-27-satellites-to-begin-building-huge-project-kuiper-internet-constellation

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14 Comments

  1. Project Kuiper is a $10 billion initiative that was announced in 2019. Amazon’s plan is to launch a total of 3,236 satellites into low-Earth orbit. The aim is to provide global broadband internet to consumers, businesses, and governments. This is a customer base that SpaceX has been serving with its Starlink business.

    The 27 satellites were launched atop an Atlas V rocket from the Boeing (NYSE:BA) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) joint-venture, United Launch Alliance. The launch took place at 7 p.m. EDT from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s launch pad. The initial launch attempt, scheduled for April 9, was postponed due to bad weather.

    https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/amazon-launches-first-27-satellites-for-project-kuiper-93CH-4008952

  2. Space Junk , time the world stand together and regulate what goes into the skies above us .

  3. missmellybean17 on

    ……so… Capitalism has now reached space in such a way that tens of thousands of satellites can’t even be shared by the oligarchs, they need their gaddamn own full sets surrounding the planet, with the same functions, just for more billions?? Okay 😩

  4. All part of the grand plan to make ground based telescopes unusable and force astronomers to launch their instruments into orbit using somebody’s rocket.

  5. Icy-Swordfish- on

    Mom: We have Starlink at home

    Starlink at home:

    (non reusable rocket that will need 120 launches to reach 3k satellites does anyone actually believe this nonsense?)

  6. Does anyone else think filling Earth’s orbit with countless satellites is going to back fire on the entire human race in the future?

    Are all the people / companies putting them up there, going to pay to clean them up?

    Or as usual are various governments, countries going to after foot the bill with taxpayers money?

    We need strict world wide laws to avoid Earths orbit becoming polluted with space junk.

  7. The scene in Wall-e of them leaving Earth and hitting all those satellites is becoming more and more real.

  8. Real_Establishment56 on

    As a Dutch person I take offense at Bezos using the good Kuiper name for one of his projects. Fuck Bezos, fuck Amazon.

  9. Internet service…. LOL.

    This is an ad delivery service. If they could do it without needing to include internet service, they would.