ULA Launch: Atlas V Takes Off With 27 More Project Kuiper Satellites For Amazon

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 551 rocket successfully launched 27 of Amazon’s (AMZN) Project Kuiper broadband satellites into low Earth orbit on Thursday, marking the fifth launch for the growing constellation.

The satellites were also successfully deployed at an initial altitude of 280 miles and will gradually rise to their operational orbit of 392 miles. Amazon’s stock edged 0.5% lower in morning trade, but Stocktwits data showed that retail sentiment around the company moved higher within ‘extremely bullish’ territory, accompanied by ‘extremely high’ levels of chatter, over the past day. 

This launch, ULA’s third batch of Kuiper satellites, brings Amazon’s total in-orbit constellation to 129 satellites. Engineers at Amazon’s 24/7 mission operations center in Redmond, Washington, will confirm satellite health before raising them to their assigned altitude.

Project Kuiper has previously launched two missions on ULA’s Atlas V and two on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets. Five more Kuiper missions are planned on the Atlas V before transitioning to the next-generation Vulcan rocket. Under the world’s largest commercial launch agreement, ULA is slated to deliver more than half of the constellation’s 3,200 satellites. ULA’s next mission, the ViaSat-3 launch, is scheduled from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Both ULA and Amazon face competition from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, though in different arenas. ULA is competing with SpaceX for commercial and government launch contracts, while Amazon’s Project Kuiper is racing against SpaceX’s Starlink to deploy broadband satellites and capture a share of the growing global satellite internet market.

Earlier on Thursday, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 28 Starlink satellites, marking its 86th Starlink launch of the year. Starlink now operates the world’s largest satellite constellation, with more than 8,000 satellites in orbit as of September 2025.

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