The USA’s United Launch Alliance (ULA) is bringing forward the launch of its debut Kuiper-1 mission (officially its KA-01 launch).
This will be the first operational launch for Amazon’s giant Project Kuiper mega-constellation, and it is expected to launch in the next two months aboard an Atlas V 551 rocket. This will be the first launch for the ULA rocket this year.
ULA had expected the launch slot to handle to be the USSF-106 mission onboard a Vulcan rocket and it began preparing the rocket in October 2024, following its second certification mission, dubbed Cert-2. Gary Wentz, vice president of Government and Commercial Programs at ULA said the government identified that payload as “their highest priority mission,” so they worked to get quickly ready for that.
However, the USSF-106 mission is not yet ready. “And so, we elected to go ahead and LVOS (Launch Vehicle on Stand) pause that booster to get that work off the critical path so that we’re prepared to launch, whether it was 106 or Kuiper,” added Wentz.
It seems Kuiper has won the race, and the rocket will handle a large number of satellites, possibly around 27 although the precise number has yet to be confirmed.
Amazon hasn’t said how many satellites it plans to launch on the Kuiper-1 mission although it has announced on social media that “another batch” of its Kuiper broadband production satellites was “on its way to Cape Canaveral.”
Amazon’s Kuiper fleet is planned to have a total of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit. Kuiper has 46 launches booked with ULA. Amazon has also purchased 18 launches on Arianespace’s Ariane 6 rocket, plus 12 launches on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, with options to add another 15 on top of that; and three launches on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
ULA has confirmed that it plans on launching “quite a few” Kuiper missions this year, using both the Atlas rocket as well as the more powerful Vulcan craft. Wentz said the first Vulcan rocket planned to launch Kuiper satellites is currently in production.
