A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is on the launch pad carrying Amazon’s Project Kuiper internet network satellites, which are expected to eventually rival Elon Musk’s Starlink system, at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., April 9, 2025.
Steve Nesius | Reuters
United Launch Alliance said Tuesday it was pushing back the second flight carrying Amazon‘s Project Kuiper internet satellites due to “multiple weather delays during launch processing.”
The launch from Florida’s Space Coast was originally slated for Friday afternoon, but it’s now scheduled to take place on June 16, at 1:25 p.m. ET, ULA said in a post to its site. Cape Canaveral and other parts of Florida’s Space Coast last week experienced several days of rain and high winds.
It will be the second voyage ferrying a batch of Kuiper satellites after a successful launch in April. The first mission dispatched 27 Kuiper satellites into low Earth orbit, a region of space that’s within 1,200 miles above the planet’s surface.
Amazon said in in blog post on Tuesday that the launch will take place no earlier than June 16, and will send “another 27 satellites into orbit, bringing our total constellation size to 54 satellites.”
Amazon is working to speed up its satellite deployments so that it can begin delivering service to customers later this year. The company will have to contend with steep competition from Elon Musk’s Space X, which operates Starlink.
Amazon aims to build a constellation of more than 3,000 satellites. The company has to meet a Federal Communications Commission deadline to launch half of its total constellation, or 1,618 satellites, by July 2026.
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