Amazon Leo is Amazon's satellite broadband network in low Earth orbit, known until November 13, 2025 as Project Kuiper.[3][4] Amazon had launched 398 Leo satellites by October 15, 2026, two prototypes and 396 production spacecraft, and 392 of them were in orbit, all working.[1] The Federal Communications Commission authorized the first-generation constellation in July 2020, and after a later modification that system is licensed for 3,232 satellites in shells between 590 and 630 km.[5][6]

The FCC has called Amazon Leo a new competitor at scale in low Earth orbit,[6] where SpaceX's Starlink had 11,154 satellites in orbit on the same date.[1][35] Amazon has not yet opened commercial service: it began an enterprise preview in November 2025 and says it will start initial service in some locations later in 2026.[23][28] The FCC itself noted in June 2026 that SpaceX was the only operator then providing broadband to American consumers from low Earth orbit.[6]

Amazon builds the satellites itself and buys launches from four outside companies, United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, Blue Origin and SpaceX, under a manifest it puts at more than 100 missions.[2][12] Amazon blames launch shortages for its delays and has adjusted satellite production targets to the rockets available.[6][12] It missed the FCC's requirement to have half of its first-generation constellation in orbit by July 30, 2026, and the agency granted a conditional waiver in place of the two-year extension Amazon had requested.[6]

Status as of October 2026

As of October 15, 2026, Amazon had launched 398 Leo satellites, including the two prototypes; 392 were in orbit and working, and 355 of them had reached operational shells.[1] The 14th and most recent production launch flew on July 2 on the last Atlas V assigned to the program.[2][16] The next listed mission, LE-04, is to carry 36 satellites on an Ariane 64 no earlier than November 23.[2] Rajeev Badyal, who leads Amazon Leo, told Ars Technica on October 8 that the first Leo launch on Vulcan was "weeks away," but Amazon's mission page, updated October 14, gave no Vulcan date.[21][2] New Glenn has not launched since the rocket exploded during a May 28 static fire test; Jeff Bezos said in October that Blue Origin still aims to fly it again before the end of the year.[17][18] Amazon says it has built more than 1,000 satellites.[22] It is testing the service with employees and select enterprise customers and plans initial service in some locations later in 2026.[28] Its purchase of Globalstar is expected to close in 2027.[29]

History

Project Kuiper took its code name from the Kuiper Belt, the ring of small bodies in the outer solar system.[3] Amazon announced the project in the spring of 2019 and applied to the FCC on July 4, 2019 for 3,236 satellites in 98 orbital planes at 590, 610 and 630 km.[7][5] The FCC approved the application by a 5-0 vote on July 30, 2020, and Amazon said the same day that it would invest more than $10 billion in the project.[7]

In April 2022 Amazon said it planned to fly two prototype missions later that year on ABL Space Systems' RS1 rocket.[10] The prototypes, KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2, instead launched together on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V from Cape Canaveral on October 6, 2023, and were released about 500 km above Earth. Amazon's mission operations center in Redmond, Washington made first contact with both within an hour.[8] Amazon reported in November 2023 that the mission had met all of its key objectives within 30 days, including demonstrations of 4K video streaming and two-way video calls over the network, and in December 2023 it said tests of its optical inter-satellite links had held 100 Gbps connections over nearly 1,000 km.[8] It then lowered both prototypes with their own thrusters toward about 350 km, where they would burn up, as the final step of the mission.[9]

Amazon's schedule slipped several times along the way. In December 2023 it expected to start full-scale deployment in the first half of 2024 and early customer pilots in the second half of that year.[11] The first production launch, KA-01, came on April 28, 2025, when an Atlas V 551 carried 27 satellites.[2] By the time Amazon retired the Kuiper name on November 13, 2025, it had more than 150 satellites in orbit; Badyal said the new name was a nod to the low Earth orbit constellation that powers the network.[3] Mission codes changed with it: flights before the rename were KA (Kuiper Atlas) and KF (Kuiper Falcon), and later ones LA (Leo Atlas) and LE (Leo Europe).[2]

Amazon Leo is an Amazon business in the same Devices and Services division as Kindle, Echo and Ring, and it is separate from Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Bezos.[4] More than 2,000 Amazon employees were working on the program in May 2024.[9]

Satellites

The first-generation constellation design in the 2020 FCC grant has 784 satellites in 28 planes at 590 km, 1,296 in 42 planes at 610 km and 1,156 in 34 planes at 630 km.[5] A 2024 modification reduced the total from 3,236 to 3,232.[6] The early production satellites operate at 630 km. An Atlas V released the first 27 at about 480 km in orbits inclined 51.9 degrees, and they raised themselves to 630 km over several months.[33] Ariane 6 releases its loads at about 465 km, after which the Leo team raises the satellites to 630 km and commissions them for service.[2]

The prototypes tested an electric propulsion system that Amazon designed and built in-house, which lets the satellites reach and hold their orbits, avoid debris and other spacecraft, and deorbit at the end of their missions.[8] Every Leo satellite also carries optical inter-satellite links, lasers that form a mesh network in space so that traffic can reach areas with no ground station nearby.[26]

Amazon builds, tests and qualifies the satellites at a production facility in Kirkland, Washington.[12] In late 2025 Amazon gave the factory's capacity as up to five satellites a day,[4] and in March 2026 it said the line could build as many as 30 a week, though it had adjusted weekly production targets to launch vehicle availability and had hundreds of flight-ready satellites waiting.[12] Badyal told Ars Technica in October 2026 that the first 27 satellites had taken six months to make and that the factory could now easily make 27 a week.[21] Amazon passed 1,000 satellites built by October 8, 2026.[22]

The FCC has also authorized a second-generation system of 3,212 satellites and a polar system of 1,292, granted on February 10, 2026 with their own deadlines: half deployed by February 10, 2032 and all by February 10, 2035.[6]

Ground segment and terminals

Amazon divides the system into three parts: satellites, ground infrastructure and customer terminals.[4] On the ground, gateway antennas carry customer data to and from the satellites, telemetry, tracking and control antennas keep the spacecraft operating, and a global network links the gateways to the internet, to public cloud services and to private networks.[4] Amazon controls the satellites from a 24-hour mission operations center in Redmond.[2] The 2020 license covers Ka-band spectrum, and a February 2026 grant added V-band frequencies to the first-generation system.[5][6]

Customers connect through three flat phased-array antennas. Amazon rates Leo Nano, a 7-inch-square unit, at up to 100 Mbps download, and Leo Pro, an 11-inch-square unit, at up to 400 Mbps.[4] Leo Ultra, the enterprise terminal, is rated at up to 1 Gbps download and 400 Mbps upload. Amazon calls it the fastest commercial phased-array antenna in production, and says it has no moving parts and runs on a custom chip designed by the Leo team.[23] An aviation antenna based on Leo Ultra, with the same rated speeds, is to be fitted to Delta aircraft.[25]

The network's tie to Amazon Web Services was planned from the start: in 2022 Amazon said the project would draw on AWS networking and infrastructure.[10] The service connects directly to AWS as well as to other clouds and on-premises networks, so that customers can move data from remote sites to private networks without crossing the public internet. A Direct to AWS option links a terminal to a customer's cloud workloads through an AWS Transit Gateway or Direct Connect Gateway, set up from the Amazon Leo web console, and private network interconnects at colocation facilities serve enterprises and telecommunications providers.[23] Delta's agreement also builds on its existing use of AWS.[25]

Launches

Amazon bought nine Atlas V rockets from United Launch Alliance before April 2022. On April 5, 2022 it announced up to 83 more launches, 38 on ULA's Vulcan Centaur, 18 on Arianespace's Ariane 6 and 12 on Blue Origin's New Glenn with options for up to 15 more, which it called the largest commercial procurement of launch vehicles in history.[10] Arianespace's then chief executive, Stephane Israel, called his company's share "the largest we've ever signed."[10] In December 2023 Amazon added three Falcon 9 launches from SpaceX, the operator of Starlink.[11] By March 2026 it had also bought another 10 Falcon 9 launches, secured late in 2025, and converted options with Blue Origin to reach 24 firm New Glenn launches; in September 2026 it added six Ariane 6 flights, for 24 in all.[12][13] Amazon also invested more than $200 million in ULA's facilities at Cape Canaveral, including a dedicated vertical integration facility and a second mobile launch platform for Leo missions, and it prepares satellites for launch at a 100,000-square-foot processing facility in Florida, at Kennedy Space Center.[12][4]

Each rocket carries a different load. Atlas V flew 27 satellites per mission until LA-05, when a higher-performing version of the RL10C upper-stage engine raised the load to 29, which Amazon said would be the heaviest payload ever flown on an Atlas V.[12] The first two Ariane 64 missions carried 32 satellites, about 20 metric tons on the first;[14] upgraded P160C solid boosters raised that to 36 on LE-03, the heaviest payload an Ariane rocket has carried.[15][13] Initial Vulcan missions are planned to carry 40 satellites and initial New Glenn missions 48, inside New Glenn's 7-meter fairing.[12]

Fourteen production missions had flown by mid-October 2026, all from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida or the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana:[2]

MissionDateVehicleSatellites
KA-01April 28, 2025Atlas V 55127
KA-02June 23, 2025Atlas V 55127
KF-01July 16, 2025Falcon 924
KF-02August 11, 2025Falcon 924
KA-03September 25, 2025Atlas V 55127
KF-03October 13, 2025Falcon 924
LA-04December 16, 2025Atlas V 55127
LE-01February 12, 2026Ariane 6432
LA-05April 4, 2026Atlas V 55129
LA-06April 27, 2026Atlas V 55129
LE-02April 30, 2026Ariane 6432
LA-07May 29, 2026Atlas V 55129
LE-03June 17, 2026Ariane 6436
LA-08July 2, 2026Atlas V 55129

Dates are local Eastern time for Florida launches. The 14 missions put 396 satellites into orbit, 224 of them on Atlas V, 100 on Ariane 6 and 72 on Falcon 9.[2][16]

LA-08 was the final Atlas V 551 ever flown. Amazon said the Atlas V had launched its 224 satellites with a 100 percent success rate across eight missions; ULA's six remaining Atlas V rockets are reserved for Boeing's Starliner.[16] The rockets meant to carry most of the constellation were not available. Vulcan has not flown since February 12, 2026,[19] and the Space Force said in September that it would review data from the first Leo Vulcan flight before clearing the rocket to resume national security missions.[20] New Glenn was being prepared for its first Leo mission, with liftoff planned as soon as June 4, when the rocket exploded at Launch Complex 36 during a static fire test on May 28, 2026. The satellites had not yet been brought to the pad.[17]

Regulation and the FCC milestone

The FCC's July 2020 order made Amazon's grant subject to the standard deadlines for non-geostationary constellations: half of the satellites launched and operating by July 30, 2026, and all of them by July 30, 2029.[5] The order put Amazon in a processing round opened in March 2020, rejecting its request for a waiver of the processing round rules, and it noted Amazon's statement that the system's design could not serve most of Alaska.[5] It also conditioned the license on Amazon filing a final orbital debris mitigation plan once the satellite design was complete.[5]

With 1,616 satellites due by the 2026 deadline, Amazon asked the FCC on January 30, 2026 to extend it by 24 months to July 30, 2028, or else to waive it. At the time it had launched 180 satellites and expected about 700 by July 30. It blamed launch provider delays and shortages, including weather, technical problems and the priority given to government launches, and said it would still meet the 2029 deadline.[6] Industry and policy groups backed the request. SpaceX filed in opposition, proposing that the undeployed part of the system be moved into a new processing round.[6]

The FCC's Space Bureau ruled on June 5, 2026. It did not decide the extension and instead granted a limited waiver, citing Amazon's investment of more than $10 billion and the public interest in a second large satellite broadband provider.[6] Under the order, Amazon keeps its authority to launch the rest of the first-generation system and must still deploy all 3,232 satellites by July 30, 2029. Satellites that were not operating by July 30, 2026 lose their earlier-round priority in spectrum coordination until March 30, 2028, or until half the constellation is in service if that comes sooner, and the period shrinks to 15 months if Amazon certifies that it has built the satellites and bought the launches needed to reach the halfway mark.[6] The bureau declined to waive the surety bond and said Amazon would forfeit it if the July 30 milestone was missed.[6] Amazon's last launch before that date, on July 2, brought the production total to 396, about a quarter of the 1,616 required.[2]

Customers and services

Amazon says the system will serve residential, enterprise, mobility, government and aviation customers.[15] In November 2025 it began an enterprise preview, shipping Leo Pro and Leo Ultra terminals to select companies so they could test the network with production hardware and software. Early customers named for the preview were JetBlue, Vanu, Hunt Energy Network, Connected Farms and Crane Worldwide Logistics.[23] Amazon has also named L3Harris, DIRECTV Latin America, Sky Brasil and NBN Co., Australia's national broadband network operator, as customers and partners,[3] and lists Vodafone among its telecom partners.[30]

Customer or partnerAnnouncedPlan
JetBlueSeptember 2025Leo-powered Fly-Fi on select aircraft from 2027, kept free for passengers[24]
ELCOME and MTNFebruary 2026First maritime resellers, offering Leo Pro and Leo Ultra to shipping, offshore and yachting customers[26]
Delta Air LinesMarch 2026Leo Wi-Fi from 2028, starting with 500 aircraft, free for SkyMiles members[25]
Hitachi Construction MachineryJune 2026Portable Leo antennas at construction sites in the United Kingdom and Germany from 2026[16]
HerotelJuly 2026Residential service in South Africa under the evry brand, expected to launch commercially in 2027[27]
UZ-SAT (Uztelecom)September 2026Authorized distributor in Uzbekistan[28]

Amazon's plans reach beyond fixed broadband. On April 14, 2026 Amazon agreed to buy Globalstar, a mobile satellite operator, for its satellites, infrastructure and mobile satellite spectrum licenses. Globalstar stockholders are to receive either $90 in cash or 0.3210 Amazon shares, capped at $90 in value, for each share, and the deal is expected to close in 2027 subject to regulatory approval and Globalstar's progress on replacement satellites.[29] The same day Amazon and Apple announced that Amazon Leo would power satellite features on iPhone and Apple Watch, including Emergency SOS via satellite, services that Globalstar provides now.[29] Amazon then applied to the FCC for a direct-to-device constellation of up to 5,105 satellites in five shells between 510 and 580 km, which would use L-band and S-band links to phones and begin deployment in 2028.[30]

Amazon's annual report for 2025 said the company expensed most of the satellite network's development costs, and its guidance for the first quarter of 2026 included about $1 billion of higher year-over-year Amazon Leo costs as the program scaled.[31] The company's spending includes the more than $200 million at ULA's Florida launch site and a $140 million site at Kennedy Space Center that can support three launch campaigns at once.[12][13] In its second-quarter results on July 30, 2026, Amazon said the constellation had nearly 400 satellites in orbit, enough to begin initial service that year.[32]

Astronomy and orbital debris

Amazon Leo satellites are bright enough to concern astronomers. A preprint by Anthony Mallama and six co-authors, posted in January 2026 after review by two referees assigned by the IAU Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky, measured a mean apparent magnitude of 6.28 from 1,938 observations. For satellites at 630 km in their operational mode, 92 percent of observations were brighter than the limit the International Astronomical Union recommends to protect research, and about a quarter were bright enough to distract casual skywatchers.[33] The authors found the satellites' reflective behavior similar to the first version of Starlink, and they expect later satellites at the lower 590 and 610 km shells to be brighter. They also noted Amazon's statement that it was setting up ground observatories to measure the satellites' reflectivity, with the aim of improving it in later block upgrades.[33]

The National Science Foundation and Amazon signed a coordination agreement in June 2025, as the license requires. Amazon committed to work toward the IAU's dark and quiet skies guidance by dimming the satellites through design changes and attitude maneuvers, keeping orbits at 700 km or lower and giving astronomers precise orbital data. It also agreed to work with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory to keep downlinks and gateways from harming radio telescopes, and where technically feasible to adjust transmit power in parts of the 17.76 to 20.2 GHz range to protect observatories.[34] According to NSF, one of the two prototypes was specially designed to reduce its apparent brightness.[34]

Space debris was part of the licensing record. Amazon proposed to the FCC in 2019 to deorbit satellites within 355 days of the end of their missions, far shorter than the 25-year standard then in use. SpaceX noted that the application lacked a reentry casualty risk analysis, and WorldVu, the OneWeb licensee, said it did not address collision risk between failed satellites where the shells cross. The FCC required a final debris plan and coordination with other constellations at similar altitudes.[5] Amazon says it plans to deorbit all of its satellites within one year of their missions ending, and it lowered both prototypes until they burned up.[9][1] By October 15, 2026, six Leo satellites had come down: the two prototypes after their planned disposal, two production satellites lowered after reaching their operational orbit, and two judged faulty before reaching it.[1]

Amazon Leo is far smaller than Starlink. On October 15, 2026, Jonathan McDowell's catalogues counted 11,154 Starlink satellites in orbit against 392 for Leo, about 28 times as many.[1][35] Amazon describes Leo as the third-largest constellation in orbit.[2] Amazon also depends on outside launch providers, SpaceX among them, and the two new heavy rockets it bought for most of the constellation, Vulcan and New Glenn, had not flown a Leo mission by mid-October 2026.[2][16]

The two companies have competed in Washington as well as in orbit. SpaceX opposed Amazon's 2026 milestone request, and the FCC rejected its argument that letting the Leo system keep its processing round status would create new interference problems or deter new entrants.[6] Amazon rates its top terminal, Leo Ultra, at up to 1 Gbps,[23] but Leo was still in preview with employees and select enterprise customers in October 2026.[28] Amazon also plans service directly to phones, through the planned Globalstar purchase and its proposed 5,105-satellite system.[29][30]

References

  1. Kuiper Statistics - Jonathan McDowell, Jonathan's Space Pages. Figures cited are the summary table as of 2026 October 15 (data updated 19:01 UTC), read October 16, 2026.
  2. Amazon Leo mission updates: Nearly 400 satellites in orbit; next Ariane 6 launch date announced - Amazon, updated October 14, 2026.
  3. Project Kuiper is now Amazon Leo - Rajeev Badyal, Amazon, November 13, 2025.
  4. Everything you need to know about Amazon Leo, Amazon's satellite broadband network - Amazon, November 2025.
  5. Kuiper Systems LLC, Order and Authorization, FCC 20-102 - Federal Communications Commission, July 30, 2020.
  6. Kuiper Systems LLC, Application for Extension or Waiver of the Milestone Deadline, Order, DA 26-553 - Federal Communications Commission, Space Bureau, June 5, 2026.
  7. Amazon receives FCC approval for Project Kuiper satellite constellation - Amazon, July 30, 2020.
  8. The latest updates from Project Kuiper's satellite test mission - Amazon, October 6, 2023, updated May 23, 2024.
  9. Amazon prepares to wrap successful Project Kuiper prototype mission - Amazon, May 23, 2024.
  10. Amazon Secures Up to 83 Launches from Arianespace, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance for Project Kuiper - Amazon, April 5, 2022.
  11. Amazon secures 3 launches with SpaceX to support Project Kuiper deployment - Amazon, December 1, 2023.
  12. Amazon Leo set to accelerate satellite production and launch cadence - Amazon, March 23, 2026.
  13. Amazon Leo adds 6 new Arianespace launches, expanding its launch partnership - Amazon, September 10, 2026.
  14. Arianespace successfully launches 32 Amazon Leo satellites with the first Ariane 64 - Arianespace, February 12, 2026.
  15. Amazon Leo's largest Arianespace launch yet will feature upgraded boosters to deploy more satellites - Amazon, June 5, 2026.
  16. ULA launches final Atlas 5 rocket supporting Amazon Leo's broadband internet satellite constellation - Spaceflight Now, July 1, 2026, updated July 2, 2026.
  17. Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket explodes during prelaunch testing at Cape Canaveral - Spaceflight Now, May 29, 2026.
  18. Blue Origin to add new Florida launch pads, seeks aggressive increase in New Glenn flight rate - Spaceflight Now, October 16, 2026.
  19. Vulcan Launch Catalog - Jonathan McDowell, General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects, updated October 15, 2026.
  20. Space Force to review Vulcan commercial flights before clearing military missions - SpaceNews, September 16, 2026.
  21. Amazon builds 1,000th satellite, will launch space internet service by end of year - Ars Technica, October 8, 2026.
  22. From zero to 1,000: How Amazon Leo built one of the world's largest satellite production lines - Zack Brown, Amazon, October 8, 2026.
  23. Amazon Leo debuts new gigabit-speed 'Ultra' antenna, begins enterprise preview - Amazon, November 24, 2025.
  24. JetBlue chooses Amazon's Project Kuiper for faster, free in-flight Wi-Fi - Amazon, September 4, 2025.
  25. Amazon Leo to power in-flight Wi-Fi for Delta Air Lines starting in 2028 - Amazon, March 31, 2026.
  26. Amazon's Satellite Internet Comes to Maritime Customers Through Strategic Agreements - Amazon, February 10, 2026.
  27. Amazon Leo to power satellite internet for South Africa's largest internet provider - Amazon, July 15, 2026.
  28. Amazon Leo is bringing high-quality satellite internet to Uzbekistan - Amazon, September 22, 2026.
  29. Amazon to Acquire Globalstar and Expand Amazon Leo Satellite Network - Amazon and Globalstar, April 14, 2026.
  30. How Amazon Leo plans to connect mobile devices from space - Amazon, July 27, 2026.
  31. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025 - Amazon.com, Inc., U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, filed February 6, 2026.
  32. Amazon.com Announces Second Quarter Results - Amazon, July 30, 2026.
  33. Brightness Characterization and Modeling for Amazon Leo Satellites - Anthony Mallama and others, arXiv preprint, January 12, 2026.
  34. NSF and Amazon's Project Kuiper establish satellite coordination agreement - U.S. National Science Foundation, June 26, 2025.
  35. Starlink Statistics - Jonathan McDowell, Jonathan's Space Pages, as of 2026 October 15, read October 16, 2026.