Watch Atlas V rocket launch 27 of Amazons internet satellites to orbit early Dec. 15
United Launch Alliance (ULA) will send another batch of Amazon’s internet satellites to orbit on Monday morning (Dec. 15), and you can watch the action live — if you’re a night owl or a very early riser.
Amazon Leo, previously known as Project Kuiper, is Amazon’s planned satellite-internet megaconstellation in low Earth orbit (LEO).
The network will eventually consist of about 3,200 satelliteswhich will reach orbit on more than 80 launches performed by a variety of rockets. Six of those missions have been completed to date, lofting 153 Project Leo satellites to the final frontier. (Those numbers don’t count a test mission that carried two prototype satellites to LEO in October 2023.)
Monday’s launch will be the fourth Project Leo mission for the Atlas V, a venerable and highly dependable rocket that debuted in August 2002. ULA is phasing out the Atlas V in favor of a new vehicle called Vulcan Centaurwhich has three missions under its belt to date.
When it’s up and running, Project Leo will beam internet connectitvity down to people around the globe. It will compete with SpaceX’s Starlink megaconstellation, which already provides service to customers using more than 9,000 satellites in LEO. And that number is growing all the time; SpaceX has launched more than 3,000 Starlink satellites so far in 2025 alone.
Interestingly, SpaceX is helping to build out the Project Leo network; its Falcon 9 is among the rockets that Amazon has tapped to launch the megaconstellation, along with Arianespace’s Ariane 6, Blue Origin’s New Glenn and ULA’s Atlas V and Vulcan Centaur.
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Author: mwall@space.com (Mike Wall)
Published on: 2025-12-14 21:00:00
Source: www.space.com
