Replace June 17, 11:20 a.m. EDT (1520 UTC): Arianespace confirms deployment of all Amazon Leo satellites.
Arianespace launched its largest and heaviest payload so far on a model of its Ariane 6 rocket that included new strong rocket boosters Wednesday morning.
The mission was designated VA269 by Arianespace and Leo Europe 03 (LE-03) by Amazon. It despatched 36 Amazon Leo broadband web satellites into low Earth orbit.
This was the third of 18 Ariane 6 flights booked by Amazon Leo to deploy its constellation and adopted profitable flights in February and April.
“Now we have each institutional and business shoppers and our most important and largest consumer right this moment is Amazon. And I have to say, we’re very proud to work collectively,” stated David Cavaillolès, CEO of Arianespace, throughout a pre-launch press briefing. “For me, it’s rather more than a contract. It’s actually a partnership.”
Liftoff from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana occurred at 9:21 a.m. Kourou time (8:21 a.m. EDT / 1221 UTC).
Whereas all three of the Amazon Leo missions for Arianespace have used the Ariane 64 configuration of the rocket with 4 strong rocket boosters, the LE-03 mission will debut the upgraded model, referred to as P160C.
In comparison with the predecessor P120C design, the P160C is a meter longer and holds about 156 tons of strong propellant. That’s about 14 extra tons than the P120C boosters, permitting for a 10-15 % improve in efficiency for the launcher.
The P160C boosters can produce 3,800 kN of thrust every at liftoff in comparison with 3,700 kN of thrust from the P120C boosters. This iteration of the Ariane 64 can ship 36 Amazon Leo satellites to orbit, 4 greater than beforehand.
Cavaillolès stated described this upcoming launch as an enormous milestone for the corporate.
“It’s vital and we wish to safe this milestone. That is our focus as of right this moment, however in fact, the story doesn’t cease there,” Cavaillolès stated. “The extra we launch, the higher we all know the launcher. We’re already additional enhancements. So we’ll do our greatest to maintain growing the efficiency of the launcher and thus the variety of satellites we are able to carry for every launch.”
For the primary time, Ariane 64 will fly with 4 P160C boosters.
📏 +1 meter longer than P120C
🔥 156 tonnes of propellant pic.twitter.com/q5gdSWT274— Arianespace (@Arianespace) June 4, 2026
Lower than 2.5 minutes after liftoff, the 4 P160C boosters separated from the Ariane 6 most important stage, adopted by fairing jettison lower than a minute later. The primary and second phases separated practically eight minutes into flight and the Vinci engine started the primary of two, pre-deployment burns.
The deployment sequence for the Amazon Leo satellites started practically an hour-and-a-half into flight and conclude at about one hour and 51 minutes post-liftoff. The Vinci engine then carried out a de-orbit burn about two hours and 40 minutes after takeoff.
“When this mission is full, Arianespace can have launched 100 of our satellites so far. That’s three missions in lower than 5 months, which is simply implausible,” stated Steven Metayer, vp of Manufacturing Operations at Amazon.
“It’s simply one thing we actually depend on to construct that constellation out at price throughout all suppliers.”
Constructing a constellation
Previous to Wednesday’s launch, Amazon has deployed 331 satellites on 12 missions by three totally different launch suppliers: Arianespace, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance.
Metayer stated manufacturing of the satellites is ramping up and is exceeding the speed at which they’re at the moment in a position to get them into orbit. He stated Amazon is at the moment manufacturing “a number of satellites per day” at their services within the State of Washington.
In Florida, he stated they can obtain satellites at their payload processing facility at NASA’s Kennedy Area Middle and get them built-in right into a dispenser in a few week.
“We’re snug proper now working forward of launch. We all know that when these heavy raise automobiles, such because the Ariane 64 and then you definately add the Vulcan and New Glenn to that, we all know that we’ll have fairly a consumption price demand from launches,” Metayer stated. “So we’re snug proper now constructing forward of the place we must be and to verify we by no means ever run out of satellites.”
These two launchers, New Glenn and Vulcan, are each grounded for an undetermined period of time.
For ULA, it’s Vulcan rocket has been grounded attributable to an issue with certainly one of its strong rocket boosters in the course of the USSF-87 mission in February. The timeline for concluding its anomaly investigation isn’t publicly identified, however Metayer stated Amazon is anticipating having the ability to launch its first Leo Vulcan mission “someday in Q3, the top of Q3.”
ULA stacked its first Vulcan rocket that may carry Amazon Leo satellites contained in the newly accomplished Vertical Integration Facility – Amazon (VIF-A) at Area Launch Advanced 41 at Cape Canaveral Area Drive Station. The rocket will roll out to the pad for a moist costume rehearsal this summer season to validate ULA’s new Centaur higher stage, which the corporate stated is optimized for low Earth orbit missions.
Behind the scenes as prep continues for Leo Vulcan 1 (LV-01), the primary of 38 Vulcan missions on contract with @ULAlaunch.
Groups have accomplished integration of the primary LEO-optimized Centaur higher stage with Vulcan inside Amazon’s devoted Vertical Integration Facility (VIF-A),… pic.twitter.com/2BZgecrbbl
— Amazon Leo (@Amazonleo) June 2, 2026
On the Blue Origin aspect of the equation, a month after recovering from an upper-stage, in-flight anomaly on its NG-3 mission, the corporate misplaced its sole launch pad in an explosion of its New Glenn rocket throughout a static hearth take a look at on Might 28.
Throughout an look on the annual VivaTech conference in Paris on Wednesday, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp reaffirmed the corporate’s aim of resuming launches from Cape Canaveral Area Drive Station by the top of the yr.
“We introduced in 400 items of heavy tools, introduced in building employees that have been working 24/7. And so now the pad has been cleared of all particles. It’s superb how rapidly that’s occurred,” Limp stated to panel moderator and former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino. “Simply yesterday, we began the reconstruction. We’re going to fly this yr.”
Metayer famous that the 24 launches procured utilizing New Glenn rockets characterize “lower than 25 % of our whole.”
“We positively wish to see New Glenn come to service and we positively sit up for flying on them, however they’re not the one supplier,” Metayer stated. “Now we have a diversified launch portfolio deliberately to do this and we’ve fairly just a few launches arising on others.”
Metayer stated Amazon is planning on launching about six extra occasions this yr throughout a number of launch automobiles. The subsequent one after the Ariane 64 mission on Wednesday is anticipated to be the Leo Atlas 08 mission on July 3, which would be the ultimate non-government launch of an Atlas 5 rocket.
He stated additionally they have yet one more Ariane 64 launch scheduled this yr, however didn’t specify precisely when. Right here’s the present lineup of launchers procured by Amazon:
- ULA’s Vulcan – 0/38
- ULA’s Atlas V – 7/9 (one used for Protoflight mission)
- Blue Origin’s New Glenn – 0/24
- Arianespace’s Ariane 6 – 2/18
- SpaceX’s Falcon 9 – 3/13
Metayer stated the reliability of Arianespace since its debut has been vital for the corporate because it rolls out its constellation.
“They positively have stepped up, you understand. I’ll say, they’re very dependable on their manifest dates, they’re very dependable and protected on their insertions in orbit,” he stated. “So we positively would proceed to sit up for the subsequent 16 launches with them on our present contract and we see them being a participant long run past that.”
Amazon was up towards a difficult deadline with the Federal Communications Fee because it was initially required to have deployed and be working half of its 3,232 satellite tv for pc constellation by July 30, 2026.
Nevertheless, earlier this month, the FCC granted a waiver requested by the tech big, however not with out some situations hooked up.
“Particularly, we impose upon Amazon Leo significant situations that incent the corporate to proceed deploying satellites at a speedy clip by briefly demoting the spectral precedence of satellites launched after the related July 2026 milestone deadline, till and until Amazon Leo builds these satellites at a quicker tempo,” wrote Jay Schwarz, the chief of the FCC’s Area Bureau. “We act right this moment aware of the precise report developed on Amazon Leo and in a approach that may encourage speedy builds and launches.”
He added that “any licensed satellites within the Gen1 Authorization that aren’t deployed and operational, will briefly lose the related precedence standing granted in each the 2020 Ka/Ku-band Processing Spherical and the 2021 V-band Processing Spherical and will probably be reassigned to a later precedence standing. This lack of standing will final for twenty (20) months—till March 30, 2028—or till 50% of the constellation is launched and operational, whichever happens first.”
