United Launch Alliance (ULA) will launch another batch of Amazon's internet satellites to orbit early Thursday morning (July 2), and you can watch it live.
An Atlas V rocket carrying 29 Amazon Leo spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday, during a 29-minute window that opens at 12:24 a.m. EDT (0424 GMT).
You can watch it live here at Space.com courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company. Coverage will begin at around midnight EDT (0400 GMT).
Amazon Leo is the company's broadband megaconstellation in low Earth orbit (hence the name), which will eventually consist of about 3,200 satellites. It will compete with SpaceX's Starlink network, which has nearly 11,000 satellites at present and is growing all the time.
About 370 Amazon Leo craft have reached orbit on a total of 14 missions to date, atop three different rockets — the Atlas V, SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Arianespace's Ariane 6.
The Atlas V has been the most active of this trio, conducting 8 of the liftoffs for the megaconstellation, which was originally known as Project Kuiper. (The first of those Atlas V launches lofted two prototype satellites, not operational craft, which explains why Thursday's mission is called Amazon Leo 8 rather than Amazon Leo 9.)
The Atlas V flying on Amazon Leo 8 is the 551, the most powerful variant of the rocket. The numbers mean that it sports five solid rocket boosters, a 5-meter-wide (16.5 feet) payload fairing and a Centaur upper stage with a single engine.
The 29 Amazon Leo satellites going up on Thursday weigh a total of about 18 tons, tying the record for the heaviest load ever launched by an Atlas V. That mark was set on the Amazon Leo 5 mission in early April and has been equaled multiple times since.
