Amazon’s Starlink competitor Leo gets a new date

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the company’s space-internet service Leo (formerly known as Project Kuiper) will “launch in mid-2026.” I’m going to assume that means proper commercial availability since the company already announced the start of an “enterprise preview” at the end of 2025, when the service was supposed to originally launch.

Unlike SpaceX’s Starlink service, Amazon doesn’t (yet) have its own fleet of rockets to regularly send Leo satellites into low-Earth orbit. That’s meant hitching rides with a variety of launch partners, including SpaceX, until Jeff Bezos’s own reusable New Glenn rocket is fully operational.

Amazon has FCC approval for 3,236 Leo satellites, but has only launched 241 so far, well below its commitment to have half (1,618) of its constellation deployed by July 2026. As such, Amazon has had to beg FCC Chair Brendan Carr for an extension. For comparison, SpaceX’s active Starlink constellation currently totals over 10,000 satellites.

Whenever the Leo service does finally go live, Jassy says it will be faster than existing services and cost less, with the added benefit of integrating seamlessly with AWS so that businesses and governments can “move data back and forth for storage, analytics, and AI.”

Late as it is, there are many individuals, enterprises, and nations just waiting on an Elon Musk alternative that can be installed quickly and economically to fill gaps in global data coverage, even if it does mean casting their lot with another problematic billionaire.