Arianespace prepares fourth mission for Amazon.com
Arianespace is preparing the fourth flight for Amazon’s Leo satellite constellation. The European Ariane rocket will carry 36 new satellites into space.
Ariane 64 launch: Six more launches booked
(Image: ESA / CNES / Arianespace / Arianegroup / Optique video du CSG - P. Piron)
U.S. company Amazon.com is behind schedule in building its Leo satellite constellation — even more so since the explosion of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket. The next batch of satellites will be carried into space by Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket.
An Ariane 6 rocket carrying 36 of Amazon’s internet satellites is scheduled to launch from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The launch window opens Nov. 23, Arianespace says. The European space company will announce an exact date later.
It will be the 10th launch of an Ariane 6 — most recently, the rocket carried the MTG-I2 weather satellite into space in late August. The rocket will fly in the Ariane 64 configuration, which means it will have four additional rockets, known as boosters. The flight will use the new P160C boosters, which contain 156 tons of solid propellant. The P160C is one meter longer than its predecessor, the P120C, and contains 14 tons more propellant.
Videos by heise
Amazon books more Ariane launches
The Ariane has already flown for Amazon in this configuration, in June. This will be the internet company’s fourth mission, with more to follow: in September, Amazon announced that it had booked six more launches with the European rocket, bringing the total to 24. With Leo, Amazon aims to compete with Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by rival SpaceX.
Amazon therefore applied to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2019 for approval to build a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). In 2020, the agency approved the constellation, then called Kuiper, on the condition that Amazon launch half the satellites by the end of July this year. The constellation is to be fully deployed by the end of July 2029.
Amazon was already unable to meet the interim target before the explosion of the New Glenn rocket. In January, Amazon therefore requested a 24-month extension, which the FCC approved in June. The Leo constellation currently consists of 396 satellites; after the upcoming Ariane flight, it will have 432. Of those, 136 have been launched on an Ariane 6.
(wpl)
