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Amazon buys nine ULA rocket launches for its space internet satellites

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The Verge logo. Amazon bought nine launches from the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance to send its internet-beaming Kuiper satellites into space, the companies announced. It is Amazon’s first launch agreement.The deal is for ULA’s workhorse Atlas 5 rocket. An Amazon spokesman declined to say how many satellites each launch will carry or how often they will launch.Amazon pledged to invest $10 billion into the Kuiper program last yearAmazon is planning to build a so-called constellation of 3,236 satellites in space to bring internet to rural parts of the world that have little to no connectivity. It’ll also serve as a major infrastructure boost to its mammoth cloud computing platform, Amazon Web Services. But details on the network have been scant since the Federal Communications Commission the company’s network for launch in July 2020. The competition is stiff, too:&nbsp;both OneWeb and Elon Musk’s SpaceX are also deploying broadband internet networks in low-Earth orbit.The FCC requires Amazon to launch at least half of its Kuiper network — roughly 1,618 satellites — by July 2026. The Atlas 5 missions will help Amazon meet that goal, but the company could use other rockets as well. SpaceX, of Amazon with its own internet constellation, has been using its Falcon 9 rocket to ferry 1,355 of 12,000 satellites for its Starlink network so far. OneWeb has launched 146 of its roughly 650 satellites planned for its network. And another company, Telesat, plans to launch 300 satellites.Amazon’s Kuiper satellites are designed to fit atop different types of rockets, but the ULA deal provides Amazon with a “capable, reliable rocket” for its first Kuiper launches, Amazon’s VP of technology for Project Kuiper, Rajeev Badyal, said in a statement. Kuiper satellites will orbit Earth at an altitude range of 590 to 630 kilometers (or 366 to 391 miles). Amazon says Kuiper prototypes have proved speeds of up to 400Mbps, “and performance will continue to improve in future iterations.” Last year, the company designs for the antennas customers will use to tap into Kuiper internet. Those antennas can also connect to other satellites in geostationary orbits, or deeper orbits at least 22,000 miles away.Amazon pledged to invest $10 billion into the program last year — roughly the same investment SpaceX has said it’s making for Starlink. In its statement on Monday, the company said it has over 500 people working on Kuiper and that its “team is heavily focused on inventing new technology to make broadband more affordable and more accessible for customers.”A win for ULABlue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company, is in the late stages of developing a heavy-lift rocket dubbed New Glenn. Though Amazon could still pick New Glenn in the future, the rocket isn’t ready yet. Instead, Amazon is working with ULA, a company with ties to Blue Origin: its upcoming Vulcan rocket is powered by the same Blue Origin-made engines in New Glenn.The deal is a win for ULA, an industry heavyweight that has fallen behind SpaceX for commercial launches. While SpaceX has launched at least two commercial missions this year, ULA hasn’t launched anything. SpaceX’s reusable rockets are cheaper than ULA’s —&nbsp;even though ULA has slashed its Atlas 5 prices to as low as $100 million from as much as $187 million. But SpaceX is, of course, Amazon’s satellite competition, which may have made a SpaceX rocket less palatable.Low-Earth orbit, a shallow orbital layer where all these companies’ internet satellites will operate, is already getting crowded as SpaceX speeds ahead with Starlink deployment. this month that OneWeb recently made SpaceX disable its automated collision avoidance system when two of their satellites were projected to collide. Industry competitors, including Amazon, have criticized SpaceX’s collision avoidance system for not sharing with other operators how it will move a Starlink satellite in the event of a potential collision. Analysts say rules requiring cooperation in orbit are a must, especially as Amazon aims to launch thousands of satellites in the same orbital neighborhood as SpaceX.Most PopularDGoogle’s first-party Pixel 6 case proves to be junk.I immediately had the impression that Google’s official cases for the Pixel 6 were awful , but a long-term review from 9to5Google shows just how bad they can get.Here’s to hoping Google does better with the Pixel 7 cases this year.[9to5Google]JPlayStation has a video presentation today, too, and it’s coming up soon.Sony’s next starts at 6PM ET, and it’s set to be about 20 minutes long. You probably shouldn’t expect an announcement on the level of Nintendo’s , but fingers crossed for news of some kind about God of War Ragnarok. The show will air on&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;.Worshippers of Elon Musk have flocked to the middle of nowhere in Texas to watch SpaceX’s attempts to build a space-worthy rocket — and to find friends Revolutionizing the media with blog postsMust ReadsMust ReadsAUber will pay $100 million to New Jersey for misclassifying drivers, gets to continue misclassifying them.Gizmodo reports that Uber will pay $100 million in back taxes to the state of New Jersey in response to an audit that concluded the company was misclassifying its drivers as independent contractors. But here’s the thing: Uber will pay any amount of money necessary to , because reclassifying them as employees would cause Uber to cease to exist. 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Let’s out them on Twitter rn haha. — Naughtius Maximus (@elonmusk)AThe Twitter whistleblower says he’ll work with Congress on “sorely needed” laws.Peiter “Mudge” Zatko’s attorneys say they hope he offered a window into Twitter’s business operations, including details about potential national security risks, during a Senate hearing today. Lawmakers focused on the threat of foreign agents inside Twitter and proposals to reform the FTC.An attorneys' statement:&nbsp;"Mr. Zatko is hopeful that the Committee’s work today has helped educate the public about just how dire the security and privacy situation is at Twitter ... He remains ready, willing and able to be part of the legislative reform that is sorely needed." — Adi Robertson (@thedextriarchy)RMark Zuckerberg has very good lawyers.As a way of dragging its heels in , Meta is trying to get as much court-ordered information as it possibly can on rivals like Snapchat and TikTok.The threat here is less that Meta will discover Snapchat’s secret sauce, and more that this (and a dozen other motions) will overwhelm the FTC’s ability to properly try the case with its existing resources.[Bloomberg.com]Most PopularMost PopularEWaze has more torture for your return to the office.The new “pokes fun at the people we can all become at work — acronym-slinging, jargon-parroting, catchphrase machines,” and features phrases like “Make a U-turn: Or what I call ‘circling back.’” Thanks, Waze, but I think I’ll stick with my Boy Band voice directions for now.Our driving experience for the month is designed to help you drive synergy.Let’s table this discussion and see if you can figure out what it is. — waze (@waze)ASpecialized teases its new e-bike brand Globe with a poem and a cheeky logo.Earlier this year, a new sub-brand called Globe dedicated to building high-quality electric utility bikes that are designed specifically to replace car trips. We still don’t know what these bikes will look like, but today the company released its brand statement in the form of a poem, which is cute. Specialized promises it will have more to say on September 27th, so mark you calendars. MA woman is suing San Francisco after the city used DNA from her rape kit to arrest her for an unrelated crime.The police’s practice of using DNA from sexual assault victims to identify suspects in other cases came to light . At the time, legal experts said the practice likely violated California’s constitution. It’s yet another example of the posed by growing DNA databases. [CBSNews]MUbisoft’s AAA games are getting more expensive.In an interview with Axios, CEO Yves Guillemot said that “the big AAA games will come at $70,” starting with Skull and Bones. , however, is listed for $50 .[Axios]JI’m convinced Tears of the Kingdom is going to feature time travel in a big way.The for the game is the second to seemingly show Link . The game’s logo is an ouroboros. And , Nintendo says that “Link’s endless adventure begins again” on the game’s release date, May 12th. If only I could time travel to then. EDoesn’t seem like Twitter shareholders see anything new in today’s congressional hearing.Twitter is down less than one percent as I write this, while the rest of the exchange it trades on — the NYSE — is down a little more than two percent.

The Verge logo. Amazon bought nine launches from the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance to send its internet-beaming Kuiper satellites into space, the companies announced. It is Amazon’s first launch agreement.The deal is for ULA’s workhorse Atlas 5 rocket. An Amazon spokesman declined to say how many satellites each launch will carry or how often they will launch.Amazon pledged to invest $10 billion into the Kuiper program last yearAmazon is planning to build a so-called constellation of 3,236 satellites in space to bring internet to rural parts of the world that have...

Amazon buys nine ULA rocket launches for its space internet satellites

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