Watch Atlas V rocket launch 29 Amazon internet satellites to orbit today

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A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket is scheduled to launch 29 of Amazon's internet satellites to orbit tonight (April 27), and you can watch it live.

The Atlas V is scheduled to lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight during a 29-minute window that opens at 8:52 p.m. EDT (0052 GMT on April 28).

You can watch it live here at Space.com courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company. Coverage will begin about 20 minutes before launch.

ULA calls tonight's mission Amazon Leo 6, because it will be the sixth that the company flies to help build out the Amazon Leo broadband constellation in low Earth orbit.

The network, a rival to SpaceX's Starlink internet megaconstellation, will eventually consist of more than 3,200 satellites, if all goes to plan.

It will take more than 80 launches by a variety of rockets to finish assembling Amazon Leo, which used to be known as Project Kuiper. Just nine of these liftoffs have occurred to date. The Atlas V has flown five of them, SpaceX's Falcon 9 has launched three and Arianespace's Ariane 6 rocket has launched one.

The Ariane 6's tally will increase soon, however; it's scheduled to launch an Amazon Leo mission from French Guiana early on Tuesday morning (April 28).

The first four Atlas V Amazon Leo missions sent 27 of the broadband satellites skyward. Amazon Leo 5, which launched on April 4, boosted that number to 29 and set a new record for the heaviest payload ever flown by an Atlas V in the process — 18 tons.

Amazon Leo 6 will likely tie that mark, as it is also launching 29 Amazon Leo satellites to the final frontier.

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Michael Wall is the Spaceflight and Tech Editor for Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers human and robotic spaceflight, military space, and exoplanets, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.