Four years ago, Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) revealed some big news: To compete with SpaceX and its globe-spanning Starlink satellite network, Amazon would build a satellite constellation of its own, called Project Kuiper. Comprising 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit, Kuiper was supposed to begin with the launching of two prototype satellites to test the technology in 2022.

That's where the problems began.

Amazon, you see, made a curious choice in picking a launch provider. Instead of launching on a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket -- built by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' own Blue Origin space corporation -- Amazon would instead launch with an unproven provider, space startup ABL Space Systems, whose rocket had not yet reached orbit.

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Source Fool.com