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The Amazon Leo service, which is building a new constellation to deliver thousands of ultrafast broadband satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for the UK and globally, has extended their existing agreement with Arianespace in Europe by adding six additional rocket launches (total of 24 launches) via their Ariane 6 vehicle.
The service, which is in its commercial beta phase, will start to launch properly around the end of 2026 to consumers, businesses and the public sector. Amazon Leo currently has approval to deploy and operate their own initial constellation of 3,236 LEO broadband satellites (altitudes of 590km to 630km), as well as 5,105 satellites for a 5G mobile service (here).
So far a total of 392 Kuiper satellites have already been placed into orbit (they need at least 500 for basic global coverage) and many more are due to follow, although progress did slow a bit after one of Blue Origin’s first rockets blew to bits. Despite this, Arianespace alone has already delivered 100 of their LEO satellites to orbit across three missions in less than five months, with many more now expected to follow.