Amazon shifts prototype internet satellites to ULA rocket for 2023 launch - Reuters

WASHINGTON, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Amazon (AMZN.O) volition motorboat its archetypal 2 prototype satellites for a planned internet-from-space constellation successful aboriginal 2023 utilizing a caller rocket from the Boeing-Lockheed (BA.N)(LMT.N) associated task United Launch Alliance, the companies said Wednesday.

Rocket improvement delays with motorboat startup ABL Space Systems, which was initially poised to motorboat the 2 Amazon satellites by precocious this year, prompted Amazon to hop aboard ULA's caller Vulcan rocket alternatively arsenic a secondary payload.

That mission, the debut orbital formation of a caller rocket that volition vie with launchers from Elon Musk's SpaceX, is acceptable for the archetypal 4th of 2023.

The prototype satellites volition beryllium the archetypal to motorboat arsenic portion of Amazon's Kuiper network, a planned constellation of 3,236 low-Earth orbiting satellites designed to beam broadband net to distant parts of the world.

The institution has vowed to put $10 cardinal successful the project, aiming to drawback up with SpaceX's fast-growing Starlink web which is already offering net work to thousands of customers successful dozens of countries.

Amazon's last-minute power to ULA's Vulcan rocket volition beryllium a convenient proceedings tally with its spouse ULA, up of the 38 aboriginal Vulcan launches it bought from the motorboat institution successful 2021 to assistance deploy the bulk of its operational satellites.

Amazon has not said erstwhile it plans to motorboat those archetypal operational satellites. U.S. communications regulators necessitate the institution to deploy fractional its constellation by 2026.

The company's different declaration for astatine slightest 2 launches with the startup ABL is inactive valid, though Amazon is unsure what satellites it volition usage those rockets for, a spokesperson said.

ABL built a customized motorboat adapter and finished different customized enactment for the Kuiper satellites earlier this year, the company's president Dan Piemont told Reuters successful an email.

"That enactment is continuing for aboriginal Kuiper launches," helium added.

Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Louise Heavens

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