Watch European rocket launch record-breaking mission for Amazon on June 17

A European rocket will launch a record-breaking load to orbit on Wednesday morning (June 17), and you can watch the action live. An Ariane 6 launcher is scheduled to lift off from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on Wednesday, during a 29-minute window that opens at 7:53 a.m. EDT (1153 GMT; 8:53 a.m. local Kourou time). The rocket is topped with 36 Amazon Leo broadband satellites , which together weigh more than any payload ever lofted by an Ariane vehicle. You can watch it live via Arianespace , the French company that operates the Ariane 6, beginning at 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT). Space.com will carry the feed as well, if Arianespace makes it available. Amazon Leo, previously known as Project Kuiper, is the broadband megaconstellation that Amazon is assembling in low Earth orbit (LEO). It will eventually consist of more than 3,200 satellites , which will be lofted over the course of more than 80 launches by a variety of different rockets. That's a lot of satellites, but Amazon Leo's scope is dwarfed by that of SpaceX's Starlink , a competitor network that's already up and running in LEO. Starlink currently consists of more than 10,500 spacecraft, and that number is growing all the time. Wednesday's mission will be the 14th Amazon Leo launch overall (counting the flight of two prototype spacecraft in October 2023), and the third performed by an Ariane 6. …