A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is proven on its launch pad carrying Amazon’s Undertaking Kuiper web community satellites because the automobile is ready for launch on the Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., April 28, 2025.
Steve Nesius | Reuters
United Launch Alliance on Monday was compelled to delay the second flight carrying a batch of Amazon‘s Undertaking Kuiper web satellites due to an issue with the rocket booster.
With roughly half-hour left within the countdown, ULA announced it was scrubbing the launch as a consequence of a difficulty with “an elevated purge temperature” inside its Atlas V rocket’s booster engine. The corporate mentioned it is going to present a brand new launch date at a later level.
“Potential difficulty with a GN2 purge line that can not be resolved contained in the depend,” ULA CEO Tory Bruno said in a post on Bluesky. “We might want to stand down for as we speak. We’ll type it and be again.”
The launch from Florida’s House Coast had been set for final Friday, however was rescheduled to Monday at 1:25 p.m. ET as a consequence of inclement climate.
Amazon in April successfully sent up 27 Kuiper web satellites into low Earth orbit, a area of house that is inside 1,200 miles of the Earth’s floor. The second voyage will ship “one other 27 satellites into orbit, bringing our complete constellation dimension to 54 satellites,” Amazon said in a blog post.
Kuiper is the latest entrant within the burgeoning satellite tv for pc web business, which goals to beam high-speed web to the bottom from orbit. The business is presently dominated by Elon Musk’s House X, which operates Starlink. Different opponents embrace SoftBank-backed OneWeb and Viasat.
Amazon is focusing on a constellation of greater than 3,000 satellites. The corporate has to satisfy a Federal Communications Fee deadline to launch half of its complete constellation, or 1,618 satellites, by July 2026.
