SpaceX wasn’t one of Amazon’s original options to skip the project Kuiper Broadband Internet Satellites, but Elon Musk’s company is about to knock out its second launch in less than a month for a company trying to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink.
The Falcon 9 rocket carries 24 satellites that washed Thursday’s attempt, but returns on Friday for launch attempts from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 during a 25-minute window that opens at 9:40am
The Space-released Delta 45 weather squadron predicts a 70% chance of good launch conditions on Friday.
The first phase booster of the mission is to do the first flight, attempting to recover and land downrange the droneship.
The launch will take place in just three weeks after SpaceX has so far flew its first flight, which has only been signed by Amazon.
Most of Amazon’s mission, which aims to be a zodiac sign of 3,236 satellites, has been signed with United Launch Alliance. ULA flew the Atlas V with its first pair of test satellites in 2023, and this year it flew two more Atlas V missions, marking the beginning of over 80 operational missions that are scheduled to bring them all into orbit by the summer of 2029.
However, the Federal Communications Commission has concluded a July 2026 deadline. This is when I removed my license to Amazon to get half of my company off track. The delays in rockets from major launch service providers, including ULA’s new Vulcan Centaur, Bezos’s own new blue origin Glenn and Allian Sperth’s Arian 6 rocket, have called on Amazon for SpaceX’s assistance.
With 24 of each of the Atlas V releases and 27 satellites and 24 of the Falcon 9 releases, the total number of space operating satellites will reach 102 after the latest release of SpaceX.
ULA has six more Atlas V releases, where everything should fly by the arbitrary deliberate deadline next summer, but it plans to launch the first release of the 38 Vulcan Centaurs, which have been signed again this year. Vulcan has around 45 satellite capacity, which should reduce the 1,618 needed in mid-2026.
If Amazon is looking for more launch help from SpaceX or gets shorter in the next 12 months, you may get an updated FCC timeline. SpaceX’s final contract mission and the rest of Atlas V bring the total number of satellites in the space to just 288. This means that Amazon will need an additional 1,330 to fly to reach that half of its threshold. This means you’ll need 30 more missions flying from Vulcan or other providers on Amazon.
It is unknown that Blue Origin will fly the first of 12 new Glenn missions (with 15 more options) as Blue Origin returned once in January and only flew once. That flight won’t come until at least this fall. Arianespace’s Arianespace’s Ariane 6, which secured 18 releases on Amazon, only flew one time, but the second mission is not for Amazon later this year.
SpaceX could knock out Amazon’s third launch as soon as more satellites are prepared at Amazon’s processing facility at Kennedy Space Center. Currently, Amazon is able to manufacture five satellites a day at its Washington facility. They will then be shipped to Florida and built for final preparations on a $140 million site built on land leased from Space Florida, adjacent to the previous Space Shuttle Landing site.
The processing site will all fly from Cape Canaveral, with ULA, SpaceX and Blue Origin all flying, allowing you to prepare the satellite for three launches.
SpaceX launch will be the 67th of all Space Coast companies, except for all but three from SpaceX.
The next launch of ULA will be third in the Balkan Centaur and first in the national security mission after the space forces certify the new rocket following two missions that flew in 2024.
The USSF-106 flight is targeting a lift-off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Space Launch Complex 41 on Tuesday.
Original issue: 6am, August 7, 2025
