Bezos beams up batch two as Project Kuiper plays catch-up with Starlink

ULA's Atlas V deploys second load of Amazon's broadband satellites

The second batch of Amazon's Project Kuiper broadband satellites has launched, but Team Bezos has a long way to go to match the coverage of Elon Musk's Starlink.

After a scrub and rollback for repairs from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V lifted off on June 23 at 1054 UTC with a payload of 27 Project Kuiper satellites to join the 27 launched in April.

The launch marked the deployment of the second group in the constellation and came after the initial attempt on June 16 was called off following "an engineering observation of an elevated purge temperature within the booster engine."

According to ULA, the satellites were deployed "into the intended orbit," ticking off another success for the company's workhorse Atlas V rocket. There are six remaining Kuiper missions on the Atlas V, which is slated for retirement, and 38 launches on the Atlas V's replacement, the Vulcan rocket.

Other launches, on Arianespace's Ariane 6 and Blue Origin's New Glenn, have also been booked, but like ULA's Vulcan, both rockets have suffered lengthy delays in getting to the launchpad.

Project Kuiper is still a long way from where it needs to be to meet its license requirements. The US Federal Communications Commission needs approximately half of the planned constellation of 3,200 satellites to be deployed by July 2026, a target that appears increasingly unlikely.

While the Atlas V launch is another step in the right direction for Project Kuiper, there may be some regret over the decision to launch the bulk of the constellation on new rockets (though arguably the Kuiper team had few alternatives).

In 2023, Amazon signed a contract with competitor SpaceX for three Falcon 9 launches. However, it requires a good deal more than that to reach the coverage already offered by SpaceX's Starlink or Eutelsat OneWeb. ®