The first 27 satellites in Amazon’s effort to create a space-based internet network have finally made it to orbit, paving the way for the company to attempt 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 […]

The first operational batch of Project Kuiper satellites reached orbit Monday, kickstarting the deployment of a long-delayed broadband constellation.

The first 27 operational satellites for Amazon's Kuiper broadband network lifted off from Florida's Space Coast on Monday evening, the opening salvo in a challenge to SpaceX's dominant Starlink global Internet service.

Amazon's Project Kuiper, costing up to $20 billion, will beam high-speed, low-latency broadband signals to consumers around the world. Monday's milestone launch kicks off a test campaign in low-Earth orbit to verify the functionality and performance of Amazon's satellites. In a statement earlier this month, Amazon said it planned to begin providing service to customers later this year.

These initial services are likely to have limited reach. Amazon needs more than 80 launches to complete the first-generation Kuiper network, and this will probably take several years.

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Amazon’s Project Kuiper, the company’s initiative to launch a fleet of satellites into low-Earth orbit and beam internet connection to users, is struggling to ramp up production, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. The competitor to Elon Musk’s Starlink has completed only a few dozen satellites, according to the report. The venture reportedly needs to quadruple its […]

Bezos' attempt at forming an internet satellite constellation has a lot of catching up to do, but it's finally set to begin.