SPACE: ULA Atlas 5 launch puts Amazon’s 180th broadband satellite in low Earth orbit.

United Launch Alliance aced its final launch of 2025, a predawn flight of an Atlas 5 rocket carrying 27 satellites for Amazon’s recently re-branded Leo broadband internet service.

The on time liftoff from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 3:28 a.m. EST (0828 UTC), as the RD-180 engine on the booster roared to lift alongside five solid rocket boosters. The rocket flew on a north-easterly trajectory upon leaving the launch pad.

The mission, referred to by ULA as Amazon Leo 4 and dubbed Leo Atlas 4 (LA-04) by Amazon, was ULA’s fourth launch for the venture, previously known as Project Kuiper.

That’s almost it for the Atlas V, facing retirement after the existing inventory of 10 or 12 rockets runs out. It’s had a nearly perfect record so far, with 106 launches and only one partial failure.

Impressive.

But it’s also a bit of a relic. The total number of launches for Atlas V, going back to 2002, barely matches the last eight or nine months of launches for Falcon 9.