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1 week ago
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Source: AFP
The US retail elephantine Amazon is preparing to motorboat Wednesday its archetypal afloat batch of Project Kuiper satellites, marking a important milestone successful the conflict with Elon Musk's Starlink to supply high-speed internet.
The 27 satellites volition beryllium launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida astatine 7:00 p.m. (2300 GMT) aboard an Atlas V rocket operated by the United Launch Alliance (ULA), a associated task betwixt Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Like Starlink, the work is designed to supply net entree to adjacent the astir distant and underserved areas astir the world, including warfare zones oregon disaster-struck areas.
The satellites volition beryllium positioned hundreds of miles supra the Earth, wherever they volition signifier the foundations of Project Kuiper -- a constellation that Amazon says volition see much than 3,200 satellites.
Amazon, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, has said the net work volition spell unrecorded this year.
The project's pricing has not yet been revealed, but Amazon has promised it volition beryllium successful enactment with its existing estimation arsenic a low-cost retailer.
With this launch, Amazon is going into nonstop contention with SpaceX's Starlink and different outer net providers.
The Musk-owned SpaceX launched the archetypal batch of its much than 6,750 operational Starlink satellites successful 2019 and is by acold the sector's biggest player, boasting implicit 5 cardinal customers worldwide.
Starlink has provided net entree to respective catastrophe and warfare zones, including Morocco aft a devastating 2023 earthquake there, arsenic good arsenic connected the frontlines successful Ukraine successful its warfare with Russia.
High contention
Unlike accepted net services that trust connected less satellites that are situated much than 35,000 kilometers (22,000 miles) from Earth, those offered by Musk and soon Bezos usage a debased Earth orbit of betwixt 550 and 1,300 kilometers (350-810 miles).
This allows them to relay information much rapidly to Earth, enabling net entree successful areas without landline connections by copper oregon fibre optic cable.
"Cost, complexity, and geography can marque it hard to instal traditional, ground-based fibre and wireless connectivity solutions successful these areas," Amazon says.
A little orbit, however, means alleged LEO satellites are lone reachable from a smaller area, meaning much are needed for afloat planetary sum and launches are much regular.
Still, it provides a ample imaginable marketplace for Amazon -- 1 successful which it is hoping to go a cardinal subordinate by catching up with its main competitor.
Amazon is readying to boost outer launches successful the coming months and years, with much than 80 flights ordered by firms including ULA, Bezos's abstraction institution Blue Origin and adjacent Musk's SpaceX.
These satellites volition beryllium gradually dispatched to the debased Earth orbit, which is progressively populated by Starlink arsenic good arsenic different emerging actors including Europe's OneWeb and China's Guowang.
Some person voiced fears the increasing fig of satellites could pb to congestion and imaginable collisions, arsenic good arsenic disturbances for astronomical observations.
The relation of backstage hands successful abstraction has besides raised governmental questions, peculiarly fixed the relation of Musk arsenic a cardinal advisor to US President Donald Trump.
Musk has formed uncertainty connected the aboriginal of Starlink successful Ukraine, wherever it is indispensable for subject operations successful Kyiv's warfare with Russia that Trump wants to spot ended.
He said successful March, however, that "no substance however overmuch I disagree with the Ukraine policy, Starlink volition ne'er crook disconnected its terminals."
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Source: AFP
