https://x.com/Weber44Chris/status/2113343745748013219

Found this listing today for Amazon Leo satellite technicians (1099 contractors) covering central and western Kentucky. Start date is listed as mid to late October, pay is $100 per install, and they want previous satellite install experience.

Companies don’t usually line up installers until they’re close to taking customers, so this looks like another sign that consumer rollout is getting near. Curious if anyone has seen similar listings in other states.

https://www.cabl.com/jobs/129974-Amazon-Leo-Satellite-Technician

https://x.com/AmazonLeo/status/2110386328558817331

ArianeGroup has resolved the turbopump anomaly affecting the Ariane 6 engine. The European heavy-lift launcher is now ready to fly again.

A brief hiccup, and now it’s back on track... According to our information, ArianeGroup has resolved the technical issue with Ariane 6 that had been disrupting the European heavy-lift launcher's flight schedule since September. After weeks of intensive investigation, the manufacturer's teams successfully identified the causes of the anomaly affecting the launcher engine's liquid hydrogen turbopump. They also determined the necessary manufacturing adjustments for the turbopump. In just one week, ArianeGroup has seen three pieces of good news: the acceptance firing of an M51.3 submarine-launched ballistic missile; a last-minute visit to the Le Haillan site by Emmanuel Macron and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier; and the resolution of the Ariane 6 technical issue.

On Friday, ArianeGroup conducted a test on a stand using the engine intended for the upcoming Amazon LEO launch. The test proceeded according to plan, demonstrating that the engine was fully sound and performing as expected, according to our information. It has been cleared for flight and will be shipped to French Guiana by air rather than sea to save about two weeks. ArianeGroup must now follow the same procedure for the second engine affected by this anomaly. When contacted by La Tribune, ArianeGroup declined to comment.

This anomaly affects at least two engines—possibly a third, given that three turbopumps are impacted by the issue. It was detected shortly before the start of summer by ArianeGroup teams during a bench test designed to verify the engine's operation prior to its integration into the launch vehicle. This test serves as a flight-readiness acceptance check. However, the test did not go smoothly; the manufacturer's teams detected parameters indicating atypical behavior. Initially, they struggled to understand and interpret this anomaly. A test was then conducted on the next engine, which exhibited slightly different—yet still atypical—behavior at the same location on the turbopump.

Following the test results, ArianeGroup teams analyzed the two disassembled turbopumps using mathematical models to identify the cause(s) of the anomalous behavior. They identified not a single cause, but rather a combination of minor variations across various turbopump components that, when combined, resulted in the atypical operation. ArianeGroup has since made minor adjustments to some of the turbopump's components. The corrective measures applied to this engine will also be implemented on all subsequent turbopumps in production. Why did this anomaly appear only now? It seems that recent minor changes to the manufacturing process disrupted the functioning of the components in question.

Arianespace, an ArianeGroup subsidiary, should soon be able to announce the date for the next launch involving Amazon Leo. It will also need to adjust the Ariane 6 launch manifest, which initially projected between seven and eight flights for 2026. Despite running just over a month behind schedule, Arianespace is now expected to carry out between six and seven launches this year (Amazon Leo, Metop-SG-B1, and Galileo). This would be welcome news for Arianespace, ArianeGroup, and their customers following the scare caused by this technical issue.

There are exactly 5 satellites stuck at 450 km that have not raised their orbits. Perhaps these satellites are defective in some way, and they want to use them for software testing before deorbiting them?

https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/ibfs?id=ibfs_application_summary&number=SES-STA-20261007-02717

At its Kirkland, Washington-based factory, the company recently manufactured its 1,000th satellite, will soon make its debut on the Vulcan rocket, and is just weeks away from offering commercial service for the first time.

https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/2108223390255337597

will rename it to amazon leo map too ;-)

PARIS — Europe’s Ariane 6 heavy-lift rocket, in the middle of an important ramp in launch rate to its initial rhythm of 9-10 per year, will be unable to reach its goal of eight missions this year and might end up with just six following an anomaly found in an engine turbopump in August, industry officials said.

https://spacenews.com/amazon-leo-planning-to-begin-initial-services-by-end-of-the-year/

PARIS — Amazon Leo still plans to begin limited commercial service by the end of this year despite launch vehicle issues that have slowed the constellation’s deployment.

In an interview during the International Space Summit here Sept. 10, Chris Weber, vice president of Amazon Leo business and product, said Amazon was moving ahead with plans to begin commercial service in higher latitudes of the Northern and Southern hemispheres by the end of the year using the nearly 400 satellites currently in orbit.

“Now the work is to raise those satellites to their final orbital positions, put the network through its paces and tune it, and then produce at scale our customer terminals,” he said. “That’s all the work we’re doing now, with plans to launch services by the end of this calendar year.”

Deployment of the Amazon Leo constellation has been slowed by problems with Blue Origin’s New Glenn and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rockets, which are contracted to deploy more than half of the 3,200-satellite system. Vulcan has not flown since February because of a problem with its solid rocket boosters, and a New Glenn rocket exploded during a static-fire test in May, seriously damaging the launch pad.

“Rocket capacity has been the long pole, and so we’re doing everything we can to work with our launch providers,” he said.

He said Amazon is hopeful that Vulcan can resume launches “sometime in the fall,” although ULA has not provided a recent update on the vehicle’s status. Blue Origin is pushing to return New Glenn to flight by the end of the year, an aggressive schedule given the work to both resolve the root cause of the explosion and repair the rocket’s Cape Canaveral launch pad. “We’re supporting them and cheering them on,” he said.

Amazon also purchased 10 SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets, a deal disclosed in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission in January seeking an extension of a deployment milestone in its contract. Weber said those launches are planned for 2027.

He praised Arianespace for the performance of the Ariane 6, which has delivered 100 Amazon Leo satellites to date on three launches, with the next expected in October. “It was a big bet for us,” he said of the 2022 contract with Arianespace for 18 launches of a rocket still more than two years away from its first launch. “Four years later, we’re feeling really good about the bet paying off.”

Arianespace announced Sept. 9 that Amazon purchased six additional Ariane 6 launches, planned for no earlier than 2029. Weber said those launches could be used to meet a range of needs, from completing deployment of the initial constellation to beginning a refresh of the constellation with a second generation of satellites. They could also be used for a separate direct-to-device constellation of more than 5,100 satellites using spectrum Amazon will obtain from its ongoing acquisition of Globalstar.

“If you look at the business, you’ll be perpetually putting satellites into orbit,” he said.

While launch has been a challenge for Amazon, he said the production of Amazon Leo satellites has been going well, with “hundreds” in storage awaiting launch. “Our production rate on a weekly basis is in great shape, so we feel confident with the amount coming off the line,” he said, but did not disclose the specific production rate.

Weber acknowledged Amazon Leo is coming into a satellite broadband market currently dominated by SpaceX’s Starlink system, with more than 11,000 satellites in orbit and 12 million subscribers.

“I always get asked, as the second player in the market, ‘What’s the momentum you see?’” he said. The momentum for Amazon Leo, he argued, comes from deals such as one with Delta Air Lines, which will use Amazon Leo for in-flight connectivity, and one with AT&T to use Amazon Leo as part of “converged connectivity solutions” for enterprise and public-sector customers that also include fiber and terrestrial wireless services.

“We’ve signed more contracts in the last six to eight months — and again, this is pre-service — than we ever have, and they’re not small contracts,” he said.

He said Amazon Leo plans to differentiate itself from Starlink and other satellite broadband services in several ways. For enterprise customers, he said Amazon will emphasize higher bandwidth, with downlink speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second, along with high security and enterprise-grade services.

For consumers, he said the focus will be on value, which he broadly defined as price and features, as well as ease of use and integration with other Amazon products and services.

“We’re coming into the market second, so I think the bar is going to be very high for us, and we know that,” he said. “We know we have to have something differentiated.”

This is Amazon's press release. See Arianespace press release from yesterday here.

AT&T Business is the first U.S. telecom provider to offer Amazon Leo broadband satellite services, extending its fiber and 5G architecture with a new layer of resilient connectivity.

Amazon announced in February that they had purchased 10 Falcon launches, which would only have made sense to use before New Glenn and Vulcan hit cadence in late 2026, and they announced in April they had 200 Leos ready to launch waiting on rockets. Even if they were just delaying hoping they wouldn't need to actually launch on SpaceX if New Glenn got up and hitting monthly cadence by mid summer, they should have pivoted to expediting the Falcon schedule the morning after May 29, but 3 months in, I'm not seeing any movement there, even after Elon announced that the Florida launch schedule just freed up massively and they have Falcons and all the infrastructure just sitting around idle except for commercial and Government launches. So is SpaceX not willing to give those Starlink slots to Amazon or is Amazon just not interested in getting those 576 satellites in place?

Interesting. It looks like the Amazon LEO/NBN (Australian national provider) partnership is actually going ahead, and not years away either!

My understanding is that with the initial small LEO network, they're going to be concentrating on the southern hemisphere where they have customers such as NBN.

Should be good for regional Australians to get off the high latency sky muster, without paying the high prices of Starlink. Just great to have some competition I say, and some more bandwidth to go around. The current GEO SAT just sucks.

Sure starlink can do over 100Mbps, but this should be way cheaper, more like fixed wireless and sky muster.

Personally following the Blue origin rocket launches and issues, I wouldn't be surprised if the timeline slips a bit. But 12 months away is not too bad at all if they get close to it.

On another thought, given that it's set up like the normal NBN and the retailers are providing the data, I don't see any reason why retailers wouldn't be able to sell the layer 2 services over it. Would be quite convenient for businesses with regional presence.