Arianespace’s Canopée cargo ship heading to French Guiana ahead of the first Amazon Leo mission. Photo: Arianespace

Arianespace has shipped key parts of an Ariane 6 rocket to French Guiana ahead of Arianespace’s first Amazon mission, targeted for early 2026. The first batch of Amazon Leo satellites arrived in French Guiana earlier in November. 

Arianespace is under contract to deliver 18 Ariane 6 launches for Amazon’s constellation — a large portion of the Arianespace 6 launch backlog. 

The first mission, VA267, will be the first for the Ariane 64 configuration with four boosters. This configuration is designed to deliver over 20 tons to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). The mission will launch 32 Amazon Leo satellites. 

“Adding a heavy-lift rocket like Ariane 6 to the manifest will allow us to deploy more satellites at a time and help accelerate deployment plans for Amazon Leo — we look forward to continuing to work with the Arianespace team as we prepare for that inaugural mission and subsequent launches on Ariane 6.”

The Ariane 6 components are now in the midst of a multi-stop journey aboard Arianespace’s Canopée cargo ship to pick up other components and then travel to French Guiana. 

Amazon Leo, recently rebranded from Amazon Kuiper, is in the midst of a launch campaign with 153 satellites launched over six missions in 2025 between SpaceX and United Launch Alliance.