Amazon Leo's first Vulcan flight will haul 40 satellites to orbit

Amazon Leo's next mission, Leo Vulcan 1 (LV-01), is targeting liftoff on November 13, 2026, from SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The rocket will carry 40 satellites to low Earth orbit — the largest Leo payload delivered to date. All 40 are already encapsulated and stacked atop the Vulcan inside Amazon's dedicated vertical integration facility, VIF-A.

It marks Amazon Leo's first ride on ULA's Vulcan and the first of 38 launches the company has on contract with ULA. Leo spreads its launches across several providers on purpose, including Arianespace, Blue Origin and SpaceX, for the diversity and scale to keep deploying as vehicles come online. Amazon completed its 1,000th satellite in early September and now has hundreds of flight-ready satellites waiting.

Vulcan has flown for other ULA customers before, but this mission debuts new hardware: a shorter, optimized Centaur V upper stage that lets Vulcan carry more satellites to low Earth orbit, plus Vulcan's six-booster configuration for maximum performance. "Larger rockets and more frequent launches are critical to scaling our constellation and getting service to customers, and the Vulcan program is designed to deliver on both dimensions," said Melissa Wuerl, director of launch systems for Amazon Leo. She added that Vulcan will launch close to half of the first-generation constellation, making it the program's primary workhorse for years.

Amazon is also bringing new ground hardware online at Cape Canaveral, including VIF-A and a new mobile launch platform for Leo missions. The setup lets ULA prep two Vulcan missions at once and cut turnaround to days or weeks. LV-02 is already being prepared in VIF-G and is expected to launch within weeks of a nominal LV-01 flight.

Vulcan is Amazon's second heavy-lift vehicle to come online after Ariane 6, and the next Arianespace mission, Leo Europe 4, is targeting no earlier than November 23 from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Amazon's joint investments with ULA are funding range upgrades at Cape Canaveral that also serve other commercial and government customers, backing thousands of jobs and suppliers across the U.S. With more than 100 missions on the manifest, Amazon expects to expand service quickly after an initial rollout later this year.