Amazon Leo buys 6 more Arianespace rocket launches for broadband satellites
The Amazon Leo service, which is building a new constellation to deliver thousands of ultrafast broadband satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for the UK and globally, has extended their existing agreement with Arianespace in Europe by adding six additional rocket launches (total of 24 launches) via their Ariane 6 vehicle.
The service, which is in its commercial beta phase, will start to launch properly around the end of 2026 to consumers, businesses and the public sector. Amazon Leo currently has approval to deploy and operate their own initial constellation of 3,236 LEO broadband satellites (altitudes of 590km to 630km), as well as 5,105 satellites for a 5G mobile service (here).
So far a total of 392 Kuiper satellites have already been placed into orbit (they need at least 500 for basic global coverage) and many more are due to follow, although progress did slow a bit after one of Blue Origin’s first rockets blew to bits. Despite this, Arianespace alone has already delivered 100 of their LEO satellites to orbit across three missions in less than five months, with many more now expected to follow.
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The most recent mission in June 2026, Leo Europe 3 (LE-03), deployed 36 satellites using upgraded P160C solid boosters developed by ArianeGroup, making it the largest Amazon Leo mission to date and the heaviest commercial payload ever launched on any rocket. The Ariane 6 rocket is assembled and launched from French Guiana, but its supply chain runs across 13 European countries and more than 600 companies. Amazon Leo is now Arianespace’s largest single customer.
Chris Weber, VP of Amazon Leo Business and Product, said:
“Europe isn’t just a region we are going to serve. Europe’s launch infrastructure is part of the operational architecture of the Amazon Leo constellation. We committed early because we believed in what Arianespace was building, and they’ve executed mission after mission. Expanding from 18 to 24 launches reflects our confidence in Ariane 6 and our continued investment in European launch capability.”
So far Amazon has secured a total of more than 100 launches for their future broadband and 5G mobile service across several major space firms (listed earlier). But for UK consumers the key question of price remains unknown, although broadband download speeds of up to between 100Mbps (Nano dish) to 400Mbps (Pro dish) are expected (reaching c.1Gbps for enterprise users). But the company will face an uphill struggle against Starlink’s well-established constellation.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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