Silicon Valley’s space race has ended before getting off the ground.
Facebook has abandoned plans to spend as much as $1 billion to build and launch a satellite to provide Internet service on continents such as Africa, says a person with direct knowledge of the project and a person briefed about it.
Facebook’s decision follows a pull-back by Google regarding a big investment in satellites. Both companies saw satellites as one of several types of hardware that could be used to bring Internet service to underserved parts of the world, along with drones and balloons.
