Amazon kicks off massive Kuiper deployment with launch of 27 satellites

Amazon successfully sent 27 satellites on Monday into low-Earth orbit, where the Seattle tech giant will challenge Elon Musk's Starlink in bringing easy-to-access satellite internet to the world.

Blasting off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on an Atlas V rocket, the satellites are part of a 46-launch contract Amazon's Project Kuiper signed with United Launch Alliance to use the company's Atlas and the newly certified Vulcan Centaur rockets to send hundreds of Kuiper internet satellites into orbit in the coming years.

“We’ve done extensive testing on the ground to prepare for this first mission, but there are some things you can only learn in flight, and this will be the first time we’ve flown our final satellite design and the first time we’ve deployed so many satellites at once," Rajeev Badyal, the vice president of Project Kuiper, said in a prepared statement. "No matter how the mission unfolds, this is just the start of our journey, and we have all the pieces in place to learn and adapt as we prepare to launch again and again over the coming years.”

In 2022, Amazon ordered 83 launches split between ULA, Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin and European launch company Arianespace to put a total of 3,126 Project Kuiper satellites in orbit by mid-2026. If successful, Project Kuiper would position Amazon to compete with SpaceX-owned Starlink in providing satellite internet service.

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2025/04/28/amazon-launches-satellite-constellation.html

Good. Eloon could use some competition. Though my local telco provides faster and less expensive service than Starlink as does Comcast.