Facebook gets out of satellite business; “sells” its employees to Amazon
Capitalism in space: Facebook has now apparently abandoned a project to launch its own communications satellites and instead has made a deal with Amazon whereby it sold its satellite division to the Bezos-founded company, where they joined Amazon’s Kuiper communications satellite project.
Over the past year, Amazon has revealed details about Project Kuiper’s antenna design, selected United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket for the initial satellite launches, and acquired still more office space for Kuiper employees in Redmond.
According to The Information, the employees who came to Kuiper from Facebook in April are based in the Los Angeles area. They are said to include physicists as well as optical, prototyping, mechanical and software engineers who have worked on aeronautical systems and wireless networks. One of the employees, Jin Bains, was formerly Facebook’s head of Southern California connectivity and is now described on his LinkedIn page as a director on the Project Kuiper team.
The Information reported that Amazon paid Facebook as part of the deal for the employee switchover, but did not provide further details. “It’s not unheard of for big companies to buy groups of employees from one another, just as they often buy small startups to beef up staff in various parts of their business,” The Information’s Sarah Krouse and Sylvia Varnham O’Regan explained. [emphasis mine]
This deal reveals a number of immediate facts, as well as one long term troubling one. First, it indicates as mentioned Facebook’s abandonment of its space ambitions.
Second, it suggests that Amazon might finally be recognizing that the people running its Kuiper satellite project are taking far too long to get it off the ground. Though proposed approximately the same time as SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, Kuiper remains unlaunched with no launches even scheduled, while SpaceX has more than 1,500 satellites in orbit, has been providing test service to customers in selected areas, and is about to become operational globally. This difference is achievement might be explained by this fact: The person Amazon hired to run its Kuiper project was someone Elon Musk fired in 2018 from his Starlink project because that person was taking too long to get it built and launched.
The new hires suggest that Amazon might have finally recognized this issue.
Finally, the long term troubling fact.
» Read more
Capitalism in space: Facebook has now apparently abandoned a project to launch its own communications satellites and instead has made a deal with Amazon whereby it sold its satellite division to the Bezos-founded company, where they joined Amazon’s Kuiper communications satellite project.
Over the past year, Amazon has revealed details about Project Kuiper’s antenna design, selected United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket for the initial satellite launches, and acquired still more office space for Kuiper employees in Redmond.
According to The Information, the employees who came to Kuiper from Facebook in April are based in the Los Angeles area. They are said to include physicists as well as optical, prototyping, mechanical and software engineers who have worked on aeronautical systems and wireless networks. One of the employees, Jin Bains, was formerly Facebook’s head of Southern California connectivity and is now described on his LinkedIn page as a director on the Project Kuiper team.
The Information reported that Amazon paid Facebook as part of the deal for the employee switchover, but did not provide further details. “It’s not unheard of for big companies to buy groups of employees from one another, just as they often buy small startups to beef up staff in various parts of their business,” The Information’s Sarah Krouse and Sylvia Varnham O’Regan explained. [emphasis mine]
This deal reveals a number of immediate facts, as well as one long term troubling one. First, it indicates as mentioned Facebook’s abandonment of its space ambitions.
Second, it suggests that Amazon might finally be recognizing that the people running its Kuiper satellite project are taking far too long to get it off the ground. Though proposed approximately the same time as SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, Kuiper remains unlaunched with no launches even scheduled, while SpaceX has more than 1,500 satellites in orbit, has been providing test service to customers in selected areas, and is about to become operational globally. This difference is achievement might be explained by this fact: The person Amazon hired to run its Kuiper project was someone Elon Musk fired in 2018 from his Starlink project because that person was taking too long to get it built and launched.
The new hires suggest that Amazon might have finally recognized this issue.
Finally, the long term troubling fact.
» Read more