![\"Amazon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783028172_222_ImageResizer.ashx.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nAmazon expects to roll out initial internet service with its \u2060Leo broadband satellite \u2060network later this year after the company’s latest launch put the orbiting constellation’s satellite count over 390, a company executive said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Amazon’s latest batch of 29 satellites lifted off from Florida early on Thursday aboard an Atlas V rocket from United Launch Alliance, marking \u200cthe company’s 14th launch of dozens more planned to deploy more \u200cthan \u200c3,200 satellites that will provide global internet coverage from space.<\/p>\n
“Still lots \u200cof work ahead \u2013 including raising all these new satellites to their \u2060assigned altitude,” Amazon’s Leo chief Chris Weber said in a post on X.<\/p>\n
“But we\u2019ve completed enough launches for initial service this y[ea]r, and future missions just add coverage and capacity.”<\/p>\n
Weber did not say in which region Amazon plans to begin service, but initial service is \u200bexpected to begin near Earth’s north and south poles and gradually spread inward toward the equator as more satellites are added.<\/p>\n
The constellation has 394 satellites in orbit \u2060so far of 398 launched since April 2025, according to spaceflight analyst and Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell.<\/p>\n
The growing Leo constellation is a budding rival to SpaceX’s established Starlink, which has a growing tally of roughly 10,000 satellites.<\/p>\n
Like Starlink, Amazon plans to offer internet service to consumers with Leo terminals – sized from roughly the size of a laptop to larger and more powerful versions – as well as governments and companies such as airlines.<\/p>\n
Amazon has been targeting a service start of mid-2026, relying on tens of billions of dollars worth of rocket bookings to loft its satellites \u200binto space.<\/p>\n
ULA’s Atlas V has become a workhorse \u2060for the network as the other rockets Amazon plans to use, \u2060Blue Origin’s New Glenn and ULA’s Vulcan, are grounded.<\/p>\n
A New Glenn rocket exploded on its launchpad last month, destroying the launch \u200btower and other hardware.<\/p>\n
The company’s CEO Dave Limp expects to resume New Glenn launches by the \u200cend of the year \u2060as engineers zero in on the rocket’s engine section to figure out what caused the explosion.<\/p>\n
ULA’s new Vulcan rocket, which is booked to launch at least 40 Leo missions for Amazon, is also grounded over a solid rocket motor \u200cseparation issue it encountered in February.<\/p>\n
Vulcan uses the same Blue Origin-built BE-4 engines as New Glenn and may see its return-to-flight further delayed if Blue Origin finds the BE-4 engines at fault for the New Glenn explosion.<\/p>\n
ULA spokeswoman Jessica Rye said Blue Origin engineers “are being transparent \u200bwith us as they work through the investigation. If there are crossover items with the BE-4 engines, we will collaborate with the team to find root cause and address it.”<\/p>\n
Amazon has roughly 100 rocket launches booked worth at least US$82 billion ($118.5 billion) \u200cin total to \u2060build out the constellation.<\/p>\n
Its other launch \u200bproviders include French rocket maker Arianespace’s Ariane 6 and SpaceX’s Falcon 9, the partially reusable rocket that has been vital to SpaceX’s deployment \u200bof its own Starlink satellites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amazon expects to roll out initial internet service with its \u2060Leo broadband satellite \u2060network later this year after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-775113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}