Up and away

Amazon’s ride on the rocket merry-go-round continues with SpaceX launch

Amazon has launched 78 of its planned 3,232 Kuiper broadband satellites.

Stephen Clark – Jul 16, 2025 1:41 pm | 36

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, with 24 Kuiper satellites. Credit: SpaceX

A Falcon 9 rocket launched from Florida's Space Coast overnight with a batch of Internet satellites for Amazon's Project Kuiper network, thrusting a rival one step closer to competing with SpaceX's Starlink broadband service.

Amazon's third set of operational Kuiper satellites lifted off at 2:30 am EST (06:30 UTC) on Wednesday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket arced downrange over the Atlantic Ocean, heading northeast to place its payload into the Kuiper constellation at an inclination of 51.9 degrees to the equator.

The Falcon 9's upper stage released the 24 Kuiper satellites about an hour after launch at an altitude of approximately 289 miles (465 kilometers). The satellites will use onboard electric propulsion to raise their orbits and reach their operating altitude of 391 miles (630 kilometers).

With this launch, Amazon now has 78 Kuiper satellites in orbit. The full Kuiper constellation will consist of 3,232 satellites to provide broadband Internet service to most of the populated world, bringing Amazon in competition with SpaceX's Starlink network.

Kuiper is an expensive undertaking, estimated at between $16.5 billion and $20 billion by the industry analytics firm Quilty Space. Quilty has concluded Amazon is spending $10 billion on launch alone, exceeding the company's original cost estimate for the entire program.

Amazon has booked more than 80 launches to deploy the Kuiper constellation, but the company didn't turn to SpaceX until it had to. Amazon purchased 68 rocket flights from United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and Blue Origin in 2022 to launch thousands of Kuiper satellites. At the time, ULA's Vulcan rocket, Arianespace's Ariane 6, and Blue Origin's New Glenn hadn't completed any launches, so Amazon reserved nine flights on ULA's Atlas V to support the initial series of Kuiper missions.

Three of those Atlas V launches are now complete. The first of them placed two prototype Kuiper satellites into orbit in 2023, then two Atlas Vs deployed full loads of 27 Kuiper spacecraft in April and June.

Filling a gap

However, SpaceX, with the world's most active launch vehicle, was left out of Amazon's rocket procurement. A shareholder lawsuit filed in 2023 accused Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos and its board of directors of breaching their "fiduciary duty" by not considering SpaceX as an option for launching Kuiper satellites. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit alleged Amazon didn't consider the Falcon 9 due to an intense and personal rivalry between Bezos and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.

Amazon bowed to the allegations and announced a contract with SpaceX for three Falcon 9 launches in December 2023 to provide "additional capacity" for deploying the Kuiper network.

The launch early Wednesday, designated KF-01 (Kuiper Falcon-01), was the first of Amazon's three missions with SpaceX, filling a gap in Kuiper launches until other rockets become available. ULA, which holds the lion's share of Kuiper launch contracts, has launched two Kuiper missions on Atlas V rockets. But ULA is turning its attention to a pair of missions for the US Space Force that will occupy the company's launch pad in Florida for the next few months.

Amazon plans to resume launches with ULA later this year, with additional flights on the Atlas V as well as the first Kuiper launch on ULA's new Vulcan rocket. ULA is constructing a new rocket assembly building at Cape Canaveral to help the company achieve a faster launch cadence. Until the new hangar is ready, Space Force demands will take priority on ULA's launch schedule, blocking Amazon from the launch pad for months at a time.

SpaceX's patch for the KF-01 mission illustrates a Falcon 9 rocket with a batch of Kuiper broadband satellites inside its payload fairing. Credit: SpaceX

Vulcan, Ariane 6, and New Glenn have all now launched successfully, but none of them have yet demonstrated the ability to launch more than twice a year. Vulcan and Ariane 6 appear to be on track to fly multiple times before the end of 2025, while Blue Origin's ability to quickly ramp up New Glenn's launch cadence is more questionable.

Amazon's only path to space for Kuiper satellites until the fall will be SpaceX's Falcon 9.

A Federal Communications Commission deadline requires Amazon to launch half of its constellation by next July. The company will likely have to ask the FCC to extend the deadline due to Kuiper delays. For a long time, issues starting up Amazon's Kuiper satellite production line were responsible for the delays. Now, it's a lack of available rockets, so SpaceX is stepping in.

The Kuiper satellite factory in Kirkland, Washington, is churning out several satellites per week and shipping them to Cape Canaveral for launch preparations. At this rate, another batch of Kuiper spacecraft should be ready to fly within a few weeks. Amazon eventually wants to increase its factory throughput to five satellites per day.

Amazon's Kuiper production plant is already the second-busiest satellite factory in the Western world, ranking behind only SpaceX's Starlink factory a few miles away in another Seattle-area suburb.

For point of comparison, SpaceX launched a set of 26 Starlink satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket from California just four hours prior to Wednesday morning's Kuiper launch from Florida. These additions to the Starlink network bring SpaceX's megaconstellation to nearly 8,000 satellites in orbit. SpaceX has now launched more than 9,100 Starlink satellites to date, including spacecraft that have left the constellation for disposal in Earth's atmosphere.

Stephen Clark Space Reporter

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

36 Comments