SpaceX is about to give Starlink's main rival a ride to orbit
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is about to launch 24 satellites for Amazon's Project Kuiper program, which, like Starlink, will offer internet connectivity to individuals and businesses globally.
Recommended Videos
The mission is aiming to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1:57 a.m. ET on Wednesday. A live webcast will begin about 15 minutes before launch, which you can watch on X @SpaceX.
Amazon's Project Kuiper is still in its early days, having so far deployed only 54 internet satellites in two missions, the first of which took place in April. SpaceX's Starlink, meanwhile, is much further down the road, with more than 7,000 satellites now serving more than 5 million customers globally following its first deployment in 2019.
Amazon used a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket for its first two Project Kuiper satellite launches. But the regulator has insisted that it must have half of its planned 3,200 satellites deployed by the end of July 2026, with the rest facing a July 2029 deadline for deployment. Failure to meet the initial milestone could risk key license permissions, though it's thought that Amazon would probably be granted additional time if needed.
The tight deadline has prompted Amazon to tap the services of multiple launch providers, with not only ULA and SpaceX but also Arianespace, and Blue Origin — the company started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — likely to send Project Kuiper satellites to orbit over the next 12 months and beyond.
The unusual collaboration means that SpaceX is actually helping to accelerate a direct competitor's progress, a move that intensifies the high-stakes race for dominance in the orbital internet sector.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Bank of America expects to launch stablecoins as Morgan Stanley weighs use
By Nupur Anand NEW YORK (Reuters) -Bank of America has been working on stablecoins like the rest of the industry and investors can expect the lender to move forward on this, CEO Brian Moynihan said on Wednesday, without giving a timeline. "We feel both the industry and ourselves will have responses. We've done a lot of work," the CEO of the second-largest U.S. bank said. "We are still trying to figure out how big or small it is, because in some places there are not big amounts of money movement. So you would expect us all to move, our company to move on that," Moynihan told analysts on a post-earnings conference call. Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, are usually pegged to a fiat currency such as the U.S. dollar and are commonly used by crypto traders to move funds between tokens. Moynihan said Bank of America was still trying to understand client demand, which was not high at this point, and would roll out a stablecoin at an appropriate time, likely in partnership with other players. U.S. President Donald Trump has promised to be the "crypto president," popularizing its mainstream use in the country. Meanwhile, Wall Street lender Morgan Stanley said that it was still weighing its options. Chief Financial Officer Sharon Yeshaya said the bank was following stablecoin developments closely. "As you would expect we are actively discussing it. We're looking both at the landscape, the uses and the potential uses for our own client base. But, it really is a little early to tell, especially for the businesses we run versus businesses that you might see from competitors, on how a stablecoin would play in," she added.
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Goldman Sachs' Results Top Views on Equity Trading, Investment Banking Gains
Goldman Sachs (GS) logged stronger-than-expected second-quarter results, buoyed by record equity tra Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Rex Salisbury's Cambrian Ventures raises new fund, bucking fintech slowdown
Rex Salisbury, the solo GP behind Cambrian Ventures, fondly recalls the time he fell in love with fintech. The year was 2015, he had recently left his job as an investment banker to try his hand on engineering at a mortgage startup. 'That's when you had companies like Stripe, Plaid, Credit Karma, Wealthfront starting to scale,' he told TechCrunch. 'Lending Club had just done their IPO, and was trading really well.' Investors' excitement for fintech grew exponentially in the following years, reaching a fever pitch in 2021. Things calmed down noticeably a year later, however, as interest rates rose. Today, many think fintech has lost its luster, but Salisbury's enthusiasm for the category remains as strong as it did in 2015. He feels the popular opinion that most opportunities in fintech have been exhausted could not be further from the truth. 'If you're a specialist and you know where to look, you'll realize that only 1% of global financial services revenues has been captured by fintech,' he said. Indeed, Salisbury has been busy investing in pre-seed and seed-stage startups from Cambrian's inaugural $20 million fund. Of the 33 companies he has funded, Salisbury claims about half have already secured Series A funding, considerably higher than the 15.4% seed-to-Series A graduation rate tracked by Carta. These companies include Simple Closures, which helps startups close shop, and Keep, a Canadian credit card and payments platform. Salisbury credits the first fund's performance with his ability to find strong founders 'who are very good at executing against the vision they lay out.' That early success has now helped Salisbury secure a second fund, which, like the first one, is launching with $20 million in committed capital. The haul is a remarkable feat for a small venture fund like Cambrian: A report by PitchBook showed that fundraising by emerging venture managers (defined as firms still running their first three funds) hit a decade low in the first half of 2025. Salisbury isn't just another fintech investor, however. Before launching Cambrian Ventures, he was the founding member of Andreessen Horowitz's (a16z) fintech practice. And during his several years at the prominent firm, he invested in a startup called Deel, which would go on to become a giant in the payroll and human resource tools space. Prior to joining a16z, Salisbury founded a fintech community that hosted monthly meetups for founders, builders, and sector enthusiasts. He also launched a newsletter that soared to about 20,000 subscribers, and runs a Slack group that now boasts over 1,800 founders. Thanks to his well-regarded network, Salisbury attracted founders from top fintech companies like NerdWallet, Plaid, Betterment, and Melio as LPs for his first fund. These individuals returned to invest in his second fund, which also saw the addition of several institutional backers, including a bank and a life insurance firm. Salisbury says his strategy remains unchanged for Cambrian's second fund, explaining that he is still focused on 'finding great founders who have new ideas for unique products.' Of course, what's different now is that startups can leverage all the advancements in AI. 'The biggest thing AI lets you do is build multi-product companies from day one,' he said. 'AI makes it easier to write more code that does more things,' he explained, pointing to his investment in Every. 'They do banking, accounting, finance, corporation tax, treasury, HR, HSA, FSA, and a few other things, all in one.'
