United Launch Alliance lost its Vulcan rocket about 10 minutes into flight on Sunday, destroying all 40 Amazon Leo internet satellites on board.
The rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 12:40 p.m. EST. ULA confirmed in a statement that the vehicle suffered an anomaly and failed to deliver the Amazon mission to orbit. The company said it will work with its customer and other organisations to find the cause, decide on corrective action, and return to flight as quickly as possible.
Spaceflight Now reported the failure happened during the burn of the hydrogen-fuelled Centaur upper stage, after the six solid rocket boosters separated on schedule. The cause is not yet known.
The loss is the first outright failure for ULA since the company was formed in 2006 as a partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. It was only the fifth flight of Vulcan, the rocket replacing the Atlas 5 fleet, and its first in nine months. Earlier flights were marred by solid rocket booster nozzle problems, which ULA and supplier Northrop Grumman had spent months fixing.
Amazon has booked 38 Vulcan launches to build its Leo broadband constellation, a rival to SpaceX Starlink. The failed mission was the first of those flights and carried the largest batch of Leo satellites launched at once. Amazon has said Leo will start initial service before the end of 2026 in the US and UK.
Source: Spaceflight Now
