Amazon expects to roll out initial internet service with its Leo broadband satellite network later this year after the company’s latest launch put the orbiting constellation’s satellite count over 390, a company executive said on Thursday.
Expanding Satellite Network
Amazon’s latest batch of 29 satellites lifted off from Florida early on Thursday aboard an Atlas V rocket from United Launch Alliance, marking the company’s 14th launch of dozens more planned to deploy more than 3,200 satellites that will provide global internet coverage from space.
“Still lots of work ahead – including raising all these new satellites to their assigned altitude,” Amazon’s Leo chief Chris Weber said in a post on X. “But we’ve completed enough launches for initial service this yr, and future missions just add coverage and capacity.”
The constellation has 394 satellites in orbit so far of 398 launched since April 2025, according to spaceflight analyst and Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell.
The growing Leo constellation is a budding rival to SpaceX’s established Starlink, which has a growing tally of roughly 10,000 satellites. 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.
Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
