Europe's powerful Ariane 6 rocket launching 32 Amazon internet satellites early April 30: Watch it live

Flight VA268 | Amazon Leo LE-02 | Ariane 6 | Arianespace - YouTube Watch On Europe's most powerful rocket will roar into action early Thursday morning (April 30), and you can watch the action live. An Ariane 6 heavy lifter topped with 32 Amazon Leo satellites is scheduled to launch from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on Thursday, during a 49-minute window that opens at 4:08 a.m. EDT (0808 GMT; 5:08 a.m. local time in Kourou). You can watch it live here at Space.com courtesy of Arianespace, the French company that operates the Ariane 6. You can also watch it directly via Arianespace . An Ariane 6 rocket launches 32 Amazon Leo satellites to orbit from French Guiana on Feb. 12, 2026. (Image credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace-ArianeGroup/Optique Video du CSG-P. Piron) Amazon Leo, previously known as Project Kuiper, is Amazon's answer to SpaceX 's Starlink broadband megaconstellation. It won't be as big, however; Amazon Leo will eventually consist of about 3,200 satellites, whereas Starlink has more than 10,000 spacecraft (and counting). Those 3,200 satellites will be lofted over the course of more than 80 launches, sent up by a variety of rockets — the Ariane 6, SpaceX's Falcon 9 and United Launch Alliance's Atlas V and Vulcan Centaur. Just 10 of those missions have lifted off to date. The most recent one occurred on Monday (April 27), when an Atlas V carried 29 Amazon Leo satellites to orbit. …