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Arianespace sets date for Amazon Leo launch

March 26, 2026

By Chris Forrester

Arianespace says it is readying an Ariane 64 rocket to launch 32 Amazon Leo satellite from French Guiana’s Spaceport on April 28th.

The news comes as Amazon Leo has confirmed that it is to ramp up its production and launch of its fleet of Leo satellites. Chris Weber, the company’s VP/Leo Business told a lunchtime fireside chat at the Washington SATShow on March 23rd.

“We have over 200 in our processing facility at the Cape, ready and stacked to be picked up and delivered to space,” Weber said of the broadband satellites that Amazon Leo. In a statement the company said its dedicated production facility in Kirkland, Washington, has the capacity to build as many as 30 satellites per week, and that a seventh dispenser is already in French Guiana awaiting launch.

Amazon Leo had 11 launches since last April, he added, which was the most launches in the first 12 months of any constellation. Amazon Leo currently has 212 satellites into orbit, after a February mission with Arianespace.

“The good news is we expect to double that [launch cadence] in the next 12 months,” Weber continued. The company had signed contracts for more than 100 launches, planning for 20-plus this year alone, he added, noting Amazon is using four providers — Arianespace, Space X, United Launch Alliance and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ own Blue Origin.

The next Ariane mission, VA268, will be the second Ariane 6 launch for Amazon Leo. Designated LE-02 (Leo Europe 02) by Amazon, it will be the second launch for the constellation performed with the European heavy-lift launcher. Amazon Leo has ordered a series of 18 launches from Arianespace, of which this launch will be the second.

With this launch, Ariane 6 will showcase again its full-power capability and its ability to meet the requirements of large-scale constellation deployments. Amazon Leo is Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite network, whose mission is to deliver fast, reliable internet to customers beyond the reach of existing networks.

Equipped with four solid rocket boosters, Ariane 64 is the most powerful version of Ariane 6. For this mission, the launcher will carry the 32 satellites under its 20-meter-long fairing and deploy them into low Earth orbit following a mission lasting less than 2 hours from lift-off to separation of the last spacecraft.

The 32 Amazon Leo satellites arrived in Kourou on March 10th and March 12th. Meanwhile, the launcher components for VA268 are currently arriving at the port of Pariacabo, the entry point for Ariane launch hardware transported to the Guiana Space Centre aboard the purpose-built vessel Canopée. Their arrival marks the beginning of the VA268 launch campaign, including launcher integration and testing and payload processing ahead of launch.

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