A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is proven on its release pad wearing Amazon’s Project Kuiper web community satellites because the automobile is ready for release on the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., April 28, 2025.
Steve Nesius | Reuters
United Launch Alliance on Monday used to be compelled to lengthen the second one flight wearing a batch of Amazon‘s Project Kuiper web satellites as a result of an issue with the rocket booster.
With more or less 30 mins left within the countdown, ULA introduced it used to be scrubbing the release because of a subject with “an elevated purge temperature” inside of its Atlas V rocket’s booster engine. The corporate mentioned it’s going to supply a brand new release date at a later level.
“Possible issue with a GN2 purge line that cannot be resolved inside the count,” ULA CEO Tory Bruno mentioned in a publish on Bluesky. “We will need to stand down for today. We’ll sort it and be back.”
The release from Florida’s Space Coast have been set for final Friday, however used to be rescheduled to Monday at 1:25 p.m. ET because of inclement climate.
Amazon in April effectively despatched up 27 Kuiper web satellites into low Earth orbit, a area of house that is inside of 1,200 miles of the Earth’s floor. The 2d voyage will ship “another 27 satellites into orbit, bringing our total constellation size to 54 satellites,” Amazon mentioned in a weblog publish.
Kuiper is the most recent entrant within the burgeoning satellite tv for pc web business, which targets to beam high-speed web to the bottom from orbit. The business is recently ruled by means of Elon Musk’s Space X, which operates Starlink. Other competition come with SoftBank-backed OneWeb and Viasat.
Amazon is focused on a constellation of greater than 3,000 satellites. The corporate has to satisfy a Federal Communications Commission closing date to release part of its overall constellation, or 1,618 satellites, by means of July 2026.
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