Amazon spends billions of dollars to launch Internet satellites to compete with SpaceX Starlink – yqqlm

On May 2, as an e-commerce and retail giant, Amazon is planning to launch 3,236 microsatellites into low-Earth orbit to build a space-based Internet and provide network access services from space.This project is calledProject Kuiper.

In April this year,Amazon signs multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different entities, which helped launch the Kuiper satellite. These include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance (a Boeing and Lockheed Martin joint venture), and Europe’s Arianespace. This is the largest rocket deal in the history of the commercial aerospace industry.

“In many ways, this is Amazon’s response and competition to Elon Musk and his SpaceX Starlink network,” said space reporter Michael Sheetz. Amazon first launched in 2019 The “Project Kuiper” was revealed, but the company’s announcement last month added new impetus to it.

SpaceX’s Starlink Internet already hasabout 2000 satellitesOperates in low Earth orbit and serves approximately 250,000 subscribers. Previously, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved SpaceX to launch a total of 12,000 satellites. By contrast, Amazon has yet to launch any satellites, but it could still be a significant player in this nascent field.

Caleb Henry, senior analyst at Quilty Analytics, said: “The satellite communications market is worth tens of billions of dollars, and no one in the industry thinks it fits the ‘winner-takes-all’ rule. We expect at least two There are even more space-based Internets emerging, serving not just residential consumers, but any business or organization that relies on an Internet connection.”

An estimated 37 percent of the world’s population has never used the Internet, and 96 percent of them live in developing countries, according to the International Telecommunication Union, part of the United Nations. Along with Facebook and Google, Amazon joins the ranks of tech giants investing in developing digital infrastructure to support their core services.

“Amazon is known as the company of everything, but it’s hard to have the company without the internet,” Henry said. “Amazon’s fastest growing area is its AWS cloud service. To support it, the company has built a massive amount of internet infrastructure, including data hubs and fiber optic networks.”

Henry added that space is a “very natural extension of Amazon’s data business and consumer business, providing goods, electronics and resources to people around the world.” (small)