On Monday, August 11, at 8:35 a.m. ET/5:35 a.m. PT, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the KF-02 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, sending 24 more of Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellites into low Earth orbit.
This launch, SpaceX’s second of three planned missions for Kuiper, brings Amazon’s internet-beaming constellation to 102 satellites — less than three months after the company deployed its first satellites in April. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster, flying for the first time, successfully landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship in the Atlantic Ocean shortly after stage separation.
Monday’s mission was delayed several times last week due to rainfall, with four launch attempts scrubbed before it finally took off. Roughly an hour after liftoff, SpaceX confirmed all 24 satellites had been successfully deployed.
Project Kuiper is Amazon’s answer to SpaceX’s dominant Starlink network, which already operates around 8,000 satellites and serves roughly 5 million customers worldwide. Amazon is facing a tight regulatory timeline from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, which requires that about half of Kuiper’s planned 3,236 satellites — roughly 1,600 — be in orbit by the end of July 2026, with the rest launched by July 2029.
Amazon has booked up to 83 launches for Kuiper, including three with SpaceX, despite the two companies being direct competitors in the space-based broadband market. The company has already signed deals with governments and aims to begin commercial service later this year.
With this latest mission, Amazon is one step closer to meeting its FCC deadline and challenging Starlink’s dominance in satellite internet.
