Is space big enough for Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos?
NASA has picked six satellite companies -- including Musk's SpaceX and Project Kuiper, Amazon's (AMZN) internet space initiative -- to develop space communication services in Earth orbit.
The companies will receive a total of $278.5 million for their efforts.
NASA said it expects each company to match or exceed contributions during the five-year development period, totaling more than $1.5 billion of cost-share investment.
Network of Satellites
Kuiper Government Solutions has been awarded $67 million. Project Kuiper is a planned network of more than 3,000 satellites built to beam broadband internet to remote regions.
Blue Origin, Bezos's space-exploration company, will help with Amazon's plan to build a network of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit to provide global internet service.
SpaceX, which has more than 2,000 satellites in orbit, was awarded about $70 million.
The company launched the Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday, April 21.
NASA said is had been looking at using commercial satellite-communications providers as it worked to decommission its near-Earth satellite fleet.
Deep Space Exploration
"This approach would allow NASA to focus more time and resources on its deep space exploration and science missions," the agency.
In addition to SpaceX and Kuiper, Inmarsat Government was awarded $28.6 million; SES Government Solutions received $29 million; Telesat U.S. Services was awarded $30.7 million and Viasat received $53.3 million.
"By using funded Space Act Agreements, we’re able to stimulate industry to demonstrate end-to-end capability leading to operational service,” Eli Naffah, the communications-services-project manager at NASA’s Glenn Research Center.
Naffah said "the flight demonstrations are risk-reduction activities that will develop multiple capabilities and will provide operational concepts, performance validation, and acquisition models needed to plan the future acquisition of commercial services for each class of NASA missions.”
Blue Origin and Dynetics of Huntsville, Ala., filed a protest last year with the U.S. Government Accountability Office after NASA awarded a $2.9 billion lunar landing system contract to SpaceX.
NASA temporarily halted work on the SpaceX project last August after Blue Origin filed the lawsuit. U.S. Judge Richard Hertling dismissed the case in November.
