CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, FL – A luscious liftoff performance by the most powerful United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket delivered the Kuiper 3 mission to LEO for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband constellation – just past sunrise on Sept. 25.
The Atlas V 551 rocket liftoff from Space Launch Complex-41 took place right on time at 8:09 a.m. EDT, on Sept. 25 for the Kuiper-3 mission delivering another batch of 27 operational Amazon Kuiper commercial comsats to orbit – thereby fortifying the growing Kuiper orbital constellation of broadband internet satellites.
The Kuiper 3 launch deployed then third batch of of 27 operational Project Kuiper satellites into low Earth orbit by ULA on the Atlas V.
“There are five remaining Kuiper missions on the Atlas V rocket, building up to 38 high-cadence, rapid fire launches on the next-generation Vulcan rocket,” said ULA.
Overall this brings the total number of Kuiper satellites launched by ULA to 81.
“ULA will deliver more than half of the Project Kuiper constellation’s 3,200 satellites, through the world’s largest commercial launch agreement.”
“This mission demonstrates the strong partnership between ULA and Amazon to accurately and rapidly launch and deliver innovation solutions for global connectivity.”
“We are proud to collaborate with Amazon and advance their mission to provide fast, reliable internet to communities around the world,” said Gary Wentz, ULA vice president of Government and Commercial Programs.
“Our mission is to launch critical payloads for our customers and serve as the catalyst to help Amazon build this global broadband constellation aligning us with one of our core missions of connecting the world.”
Enjoy our launch and prelaunch photos taken by the Space UpClose team of Ken Kremer and Jean Wright on the Cape media viewing site and at pad 41
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