WASHINGTON - Amazon is taking its internet-from-space ambitions to new heights, or at least to a higher payload capacity, by cramming 36 broadband satellites onto a single Ariane 6 rocket. The company announced June 5 that its LE-03 mission, scheduled for June 17 from French Guiana, will carry the largest batch of Amazon Leo satellites yet, thanks to an upgraded booster that's basically the rocket equivalent of adding a few more inches to your belt.
The LE-03 mission marks the first Ariane 6 launch to use P160C solid rocket boosters, which are one meter longer than the P120C boosters used on previous flights. Those four extra meters of booster give the rocket over two metric tons more low Earth orbit performance, allowing Amazon to squeeze 36 satellites aboard instead of the 32 it carried on the two earlier Ariane 6 launches.
“Increasing our payload capacity to 36 satellites per mission is the result of extensive engineering collaboration between our team and Arianespace,” said Melissa Wuerl, director of launch systems at Amazon Leo, in a statement that suggests someone did the math and found a way to fit more square pegs into round holes. “The upgraded P160C boosters give us the performance margin to do that confidently, and we’re already looking ahead to further optimizations as we continue building out Amazon Leo.”
David Cavaillolès, chief executive of Arianespace, chimed in with his own booster enthusiasm: “The upgraded P160C boosters are bringing exactly the performance gains we designed them for, and LE-03 will be our most ambitious launch together yet.”
Amazon has flown between 27 and 29 satellites on Atlas 5 launches and 24 on Falcon 9 launches, so 36 is a new personal best. The company had hoped to top that with a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket carrying 48 satellites in early June, but that rocket decided to explode on the launch pad during a static-fire test on May 28, damaging the pad and grounding it until at least the end of the year. Oops.
Meanwhile, Amazon is also waiting for United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket to make its Amazon Leo debut. That rocket hasn't flown since a February mission for the U.S. Space Force, during which one of its solid rocket boosters suffered an anomaly. ULA has been stacking a Vulcan for Amazon, but neither party has announced a launch date. After an Atlas 5 launch carrying Amazon Leo satellites on May 29, ULA said its next launch will be another Atlas 5 mission for Amazon Leo in July.
So far, Amazon Leo has launched 331 satellites, barely 10% of its planned constellation of 3,232. That puts the company well short of a July 30 deadline from the Federal Communications Commission to have at least 50% of its constellation in orbit. Amazon filed a request in January to either extend that deadline by 24 months or waive it entirely, citing launch delays. The FCC, presumably still reading the fine print, has not yet ruled.