• Billionaire Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon and CEO of Blue Origin, which also launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
• Billionaire Elon Musk is the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and the leader of DOGE, the Department of Government of Efficiency.
• Over the years, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have ranked among the richest person on the planet.

Enter another billionaire: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is launching Project Kuiper, a global constellation of 3,232 broadband satellites that will compete for customers with SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s sprawling Starlink network.

Liftoff of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on the first-ever launch of Project Kuiper production satellites is scheduled for 7 p.m. EDT Wednesday from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The launch window will last two hours.

Equipped with five side-mounted rocket boosters, the Atlas V will lift the $10 billion internet constellation’s first set of 27 satellites into low-Earth orbit. Primary weather concerns include liftoff winds and cumulus clouds, ULA reported Monday evening.

“Leadership from ULA, the Space Force and Amazon assessed the readiness of the rocket, payload and mission assets, discussed the status of pre-flight processing work, heard technical overviews of the countdown and flight, and previewed the weather forecast that projects a 65 percent chance of meeting the launch rules,” said a ULA blog post detailing a Monday launch readiness review.

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The goal of the Project Kuiper constellation: Connect billions of people with a global network of ground-based antennas, fiber and internet connection points.

FLORIDA TODAY’s Space Team will start providing launch coverage updates about two hours before Wednesday’s launch target time. We’ll also link with ULA’s live webcast when it kicks off about 6:35 p.m.

All told, ULA will launch eight Atlas V and 38 Vulcan rockets on Project Kuiper missions. The Amazon initiative has also contracted with SpaceX, Blue Origin and Arianespace, upping the total to 80-plus pending launches.

“Our initial objective for (Wednesday’s) KA-01 mission is to deploy all of the satellites safely in orbit, which means they can independently maneuver and communicate with our team on the ground,” an Amazon news release said.

“To do so, once the satellites have successfully separated from the rocket, they will begin a series of mostly automated steps to activate onboard systems and use their electric propulsion systems to gradually ascend to their assigned orbit of 392 miles (630 km),” the release said.

“The satellites will travel at a speed of more than 17,000 miles per hour (27,359 km per hour) on orbit and circle the planet approximately every 90 minutes,” the release said.

For the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space.

Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at[email protected]. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1

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