Amazon is requesting more time to launch LEO, its competitor to Starlink, and says it will miss the July deadline to have half of its satellite network working.  

On Friday, Amazon asked the Federal Commission for more time. The FCC approved the satellite internet project in 2020. Amazon was required to launch and run half of its 3,200 satellites by July 30, 2026, or it would lose permission to finish the network.  

However, the filing says Amazon expects only about 700 satellites in orbit by then, well short of the required 1,600. Right now, the LEO network has just 180 satellites.  

To address this, Amazon is asking the FCC for two more years to reach the 50% goal or for a waiver of the rule. The company says it has booked many more launch dates than needed to finish the first-generation LEO system by 2029, hoping to avoid more delays.  

Amazon-LEO has executed the largest commercial procurement of launch capacity in history. It now has a manifest of more than 100 missions scheduled through Q1 2029. The company wrote that this equates to an average of 3 planned launches per month over the next 3 years, each carrying an average of more than 40 new satellites into low Earth orbit.  

Amazon also says it is keeping hundreds of satellites that are already built and ready to launch near the launch sites. The filing suggests the company plans to start serving users by the July 30 deadline, but these may not be regular consumers.  

By this date, Amazon LEO also expects to have its customer terminals in the hands of more enterprise and government customers and to be set to roll out service more broadly in the US and across the globe, the filing says.  

FCC will probably approve the extension because it sees both Starlink and Leo as key to bringing fast internet to people in remote and rural parts of the US. Leo has also been chosen to provide internet to unserved areas through the federal BEAD program.  

Amazon also says that strict enforcement would interrupt or halt this effort, stripping Amazon’s Leo of authority to launch the undeployed portion of its system until it secures a new license from the Commission.  

The extension request is not unexpected. Over time, Amazon’s Starlink competitor has faced several delays in launching satellites, leading to a lawsuit from a pension fund that owns Amazon shares. Unlike SpaceX, which uses its own Falcon 9 rocket, Amazon initially hired Arianespace, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance to launch its satellites. However, these companies have also experienced delays even with their newest rockets.  

In late 2023, Amazon planned to use some SpaceX launches that were still in the FCC filing. The company says Leo has faced a shortage of near-term launch availability due to manufacturing disruptions, the grounding of new launch vehicles, and restrictions on spaceport capacity. As a result, Amazon could complete only 7 of the more than 20 launches it had planned for 2025.

Source: Amazon to FCC: Our Starlink Rival Needs More Time to Deploy