Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin plans to build 5,400-satellite megaconstellation

Yet another satellite megaconstellation is in the works, this one from Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin.

The Washington-based aerospace company announced today (Jan. 21) that it plans to build a network called TeraWave, which will consist of 5,280 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) and 128 a bit higher up, in medium Earth orbit (MEO).

"This network will service tens of thousands of enterprise, data center and government users who require reliable connectivity for critical operations," Blue Origin said in an X post today.

As that post notes, TeraWave is targeting a customer base of big businesses and government agencies — organizations that want or need very high-throughput communications services.

TeraWave's LEO satellites will deliver speeds of up to 144 gigabits per second using radio frequency links, according to a Blue Origin statement. And the MEO spacecraft will be even more capable, using lasers to provide speeds of up to 6 terabits per second.

"TeraWave addresses the unmet needs of customers who are seeking higher throughput, symmetrical upload/download speeds, more redundancy and rapid scalability," Blue Origin's statement reads. "It enables customers to choose throughput and physical presence in response to changes in their needs."

Blue Origin plans to start building out the constellation in the fourth quarter of 2027.

A number of other satellite-internet megaconstellations are under construction. SpaceX's Starlink, for example, already services customers around the globe using a network of more than 9,500 satellites (and that number is growing all the time).

Two Chinese megaconstellations — Guowang ("National Network") and Qianfan ("Thousand Sails") — are under construction in LEO as well. Both will eventually consist of more than 13,000 spacecraft, if all goes according to plan.

And Amazon, which Bezos founded back in 1994, is assembling a 3,200-satellite network in LEO called, appropriately enough, Amazon Leo (though it was initially named Project Kuiper). Like Starlink, Amazon Leo is tailored more to everyday residential users.