Amazon Leo Orders Six Additional Launches with European Ariane 6 Rocket

Amazon Leo, the main commercial customer of the European Ariane 6 rocket, ordered six more satellite launches on Wednesday, during the Paris Space Summit. The new contracts bring the total number of Amazon Leo missions assigned to this launcher to 24.

The company presented the orders as confirmation of its confidence in the performance and reliability of the Ariane 6 rocket, as well as in Europe’s ability to ensure independent access to space.

In 2022, two years before it entered service, “we bet on the Ariane 6 rocket, on the company, on its teams, on this launcher and, more broadly, on European launch capability, and this bet is now bearing fruit,” said Chris Weber, an Amazon Leo executive.

To date, the Ariane 64 variant has been launched from the Kourou Space Centre in French Guiana and has placed 100 satellites into low Earth orbit as part of the Amazon Leo constellation.

In June, the rocket carried 36 satellites, the largest commercial payload ever sent into space, according to Amazon Leo representatives.

The constellation currently has nearly 400 active satellites, and the ultimate goal is to exceed 3,200. Arianespace also announced an agreement to launch Earth-monitoring satellites belonging to the Finnish company Iceye, which is used in fields such as defense, the environment, insurance and emergency response.