Amazon has gone one step further into space. The company received authorization from the United States government to put more than 3,200 satellites into orbit in order to provide internet service to parts of the world that do not have it. At the same time, it will be a new business with the sale of the service to individuals or companies, Amazon said.
“Lately we have heard many stories of people who cannot do their job or complete their studies because they do not have reliable internet at home,” said manager Dave Limp in a statement.
Amazon said it will invest $ 10 billion in the initiative, called the Kuiper Project. It will set up a research center in Redmond, Washington state, where it will design and test the satellites.
The sum would be three times what the company earned in its most recent quarter.
Other companies have put satellites into orbit, such as SpaceX, Elon Musk’s aerospace company, the CEO of Tesla. The SpaceX project received government approval in 2018.
Space is one of the main interests of Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon and the richest man in the world. He owns a space exploration company and has said that in the distant future heavy industries could be installed in space to keep emissions out of Earth’s atmosphere.
Amazon did not say when it expects to launch the Kuiper Project, but the Federal Communications Commission, which approved the initiative on Thursday, said half of the satellites should be in orbit by July 2026.
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