By Joey Roulette
BROWNSVILLE, Texas, Nov 15 (Reuters) - A Vulcan rocket owned by United Launch Alliance, the joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, failed on Sunday shortly after liftoff from Florida, destroying its payload of 40 satellites for Amazon’s Leo internet network in the launch company’s first mission failure.
The rocket failed roughly 10 minutes after liftoff from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and the cause was not immediately clear. It represented a major setback for the two-decade-old company’s new flagship rocket as it sought to begin a regular cadence of launches for Amazon’s burgeoning satellite internet constellation.
“Based on data received by our Launch Director, we confirm that the Vulcan vehicle launched from Space Launch Complex 41 suffered an anomaly 10 minutes into the flight and failed to deliver the Amazon mission to orbit,” ULA said in a statement.
“Every flight generates data, and every flight teaches us something. Since the anomaly just occurred, we don’t have any specific data yet to understand what occurred today.”
The mission was Vulcan’s fifth since its 2024 debut and first in nine months, following a launch hiatus drawn out by separate technical investigations into its solid rocket side-boosters and its core BE-4 engines, which are supplied by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space company.
The boosters were being scrutinized for issues encountered on Vulcan’s last two flights, including a mission in February for the US Space Force. Both missions successfully delivered their payloads to orbit, but the Pentagon had not yet approved the rocket to resume flying national security payloads, pending its performance with the Amazon mission on Sunday.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket with the BE-4 engine had a launchpad explosion in May, and its investigation determined the engine was the cause. That led the company to modify those delivered to ULA for Vulcan, ULA spokesperson Jessica Rye told Reuters in August.
It was unclear if the BE-4 engines played a role in Sunday’s mission failure. It appeared to occur after the separation of Vulcan’s second stage, the portion carrying the Amazon satellites, from the first-stage booster powered by the BE-4 engines.
The failure is another setback for Amazon as it races to deploy satellites using third-party launch providers, many of which have had groundings and failures. The New Glenn explosion in May happened days before it was due to launch Amazon Leo satellites.
The rocket failures have persistently held up Amazon’s bid to rival SpaceX’s vast Starlink internet network, which has more than 11,000 satellites and millions of customers worldwide.
Since 2025, 398 Leo satellites have been deployed across 14 launches, about 12% of Amazon’s plan. The company has hoped to start initial internet service this year.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
