Jeff Bezos, the founder of the online retail giant Amazon, is expanding his interests in space.
On Friday he launched two prototype satellites for a broadband mega-constellation he calls Project Kuiper.
Mr Bezos is planning to put up more than 3,200 spacecraft in the next few years to deliver internet connections to anywhere on the globe.
He hopes to challenge Elon Musk’s Starlink, which already offers satellite internet in many countries.
The two small satellites launching on Friday – KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2 – will trial the necessary technology.
They were carried into a 500km-high (310 miles) orbit by an Atlas-5 rocket.
The flight from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida launched at 14:00 EDT (18:00 GMT).
Amazon began research and development on the $10bn (£8bn) Project Kuiper in 2018.
The ambition is to join the rapidly growing market for high-bandwidth, low latency (minimal delay) internet connections that are bounced across the sky, as opposed to through fibre connections on the ground.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX company is the leader in the field and already has more than 4,800 working spacecraft in orbit.
UK-based Eutelsat-OneWeb has also built out a network of 620 satellites, but the list of wannabes in the sector is growing all the time with similar projects announced in Canada, the EU, and China, in addition to proposals from other US companies.
