Alabama-assembled ULA rocket powers first Amazon satellites into orbit
The Atlas V 501 rocket blasting off last Friday launched the Protoflight mission for Amazon’s Project Kuiper, a low Earth orbit satellite network that will provide fast, affordable internet service to under-resourced communities around the world.
ULA’s factory in Decatur played a key role in the successful mission, which delivered the two satellites to orbit 311 miles above Earth.
Workers at the Alabama facility handled final assembly of the Atlas V and fabricated its booster, as well as producing the rocket’s Centaur second stage. Partner Beyond Gravity, located on the ULA campus, fabricated the 5-meter payload fairing that encased the satellites as the rocket’s nose cone.
“This initial launch is the first step in support of deployment of Amazon’s initiative to provide fast, affordable broadband service to unserved and underserved communities around the world,” said Gary Wentz, ULA vice president of Government and Commercial Programs.
The Protoflight launch represented the first mission in a broad commercial partnership between ULA and Amazon to launch the majority of the Project Kuiper constellation — and means a lot of activity at the ULA factory in Decatur.
Amazon plans to deploy more than 3,200 Kuiper satellites over more than 80 missions, with ULA rockets booked for over half of those missions.
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more: https://www.madeinalabama.com/2023/10/alabama-assembled-ula-rocket-powers-first-amazon-satellites-into-orbit/
It's not enough to have Starlink satellites photobombing observatories around the world -- now Bezos has to have a "mine is bigger than yours" showdown with Musk to make the problem even worse ??
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Wealthy people can enjoy phone and internet service wherever they go as they crap all over earth's few remaining wild places.
There's no reason people living in rural areas that have long been settled by humans shouldn't enjoy fiber optic communications and grid electrical power. My great grandparents who lived in very rural U.S.A. got telephone and electric service as part of FDR's New Deal. That should be the norm, the standard we aspire to, everywhere on earth.
Let the few remaining wilderness areas remain wilderness. We've already got emergency beacon services covering most of the earth's surface. That's enough.
I do not support or celebrate billionaires and their toxic dreams of world domination.