WASHINGTON—Amazon’s satellite venture, SpaceX’s Starlink network, and other satellite firms on Wednesday won a combined $278.5 million in contracts from NASA to demonstrate communications in space as the U.S. space agency moves to replace its current satellite network in orbit with privately-built systems.
NASA is increasingly looking to rely on private space companies for its operations and wants to stimulate more commercial activity in areas from space communications to sending humans to orbit.
Amazon’s Project Kuiper, a planned network of over 3,000 satellites built to beam broadband internet to remote regions, won $67 million, while SpaceX’s Starlink venture, a larger satellite-internet network with some 2,000 satellites in space already, received $70 million.
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