TAMPA, Fla. — Project Kuiper has shed its seven-year-old code name, emerging as Amazon Leo Nov. 13 as the company nears the start of initial broadband services from the low Earth orbit constellation next year.
While the codename was inspired by the Kuiper Belt ring of asteroids in Earth’s outer solar system, the company said the rebrand is a simple nod to the orbit where it has deployed 153 of more than 3,200 proposed satellites so far.
An Amazon spokesperson told SpaceNews that the Kuiper Government Solutions division has also been rebranded as Leo for Government.
The spokesperson declined to say when the company next plans to deploy a batch of satellites, amid a Federal Communications Commission deadline to deploy half the network, or 1,616 satellites, by July 2026.
Ricky Freeman, president of the government-focused division, outlined plans Sept. 15 for one more mission this year, with services expected to begin in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany and France before the end of March.
SpaceX has already completed all three of its contracted missions for the constellation as part of Amazon’s multibillion-dollar, multi-provider launch arrangement.
United Launch Alliance has five Atlas 5s left on the manifest after using the rockets to deploy the other three batches of satellites that launched this year.
The rest of the schedule relies on nascent rockets that have yet to prove their reliability at scale: 38 ULA Vulcan Centaurs, 18 Arianespace Ariane 6s and up to 27 New Glenn rockets from Blue Origin.
Vulcan returned to flight in August with a successful mission for the U.S. Space Force after suffering an upper-stage anomaly on its second mission last year.
A second flight for New Glenn, to carry NASA’s ESCAPADE twin spacecraft to Mars, is slated for today, following an investigation into a failed booster landing during its debut early this year.
Meanwhile, Arianespace said in October that the inaugural flight of the Ariane 64 variant to be used for Amazon Leo launches had slipped into 2026.
