Bezos’s Blue Origin announces plans to deploy thousands of satellites in 2027

Deployment will serve data centers, governments and businesses, jumping into market dominated by SpaceX

Jeff Bezos’s space company Blue Origin on Wednesday announced a plan to deploy 5,408 satellites in space for a communications network that will serve data centers, governments and businesses, jumping into a satellite constellation market dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Deployment of satellites is planned to begin in the last quarter of 2027, Blue Origin said, adding the network will be designed to have “data speeds of up to 6 Tbps anywhere on Earth”. That speed, possible with the satellites’ planned optical communications, is extreme by consumer standards and would make the network key for data processing and large-scale government programs. Blue Origin said the network would be meant to serve a maximum of roughly 100,000 customers.