🇺🇸 Amazon Leo Satellites — Project Kuiper
Amazon's satellite internet constellation — rebranded as Amazon Leo in November 2025 — has deployed hundreds of production satellites and is scaling rapidly toward its 3,236-satellite target. OrbitalNodes tracks every Kuiper / Amazon Leo satellite in real time.
As of 24 August 2026, around 391 Amazon Leo satellites (formerly Project Kuiper) are in orbit, scaling toward a planned 3,236. OrbitalNodes shows which ones are overhead your location, live.
OrbitalNodes' constellation counter shows how many Kuiper / Amazon Leo satellites are above your horizon right now, how many are in good viewing position, and when the next one will pass overhead. With launches accelerating through 2026 this count is growing fast.
LIVE AMAZON LEO / KUIPER CONSTELLATION · -- TRACKED · TRAINS DETECTED WHEN ACTIVE
● Steady dot, no blinking
● Warm white, slight orange tint
● Dark skies essential — mag 5
● Binoculars make it easy
● Slower than ISS — 590–630km up
Faintest naked-eye
stars in dark sky
Binoculars strongly recommended
⬡ AMAZON KUIPER
- 3,236 satellites planned
- 590–630 km altitude
- Three orbital shells
- 33°, 42°, 51.9° inclinations
- First production launches 2025
- AWS infrastructure backend
- Targets home & enterprise
- Amazon retail hardware
★ SPACEX STARLINK
- 10,000+ operational
- 540–570 km altitude
- Multiple shells + polar
- 53°, 70°, 97° inclinations
- Operational since 2020
- Starlink network backend
- Targets consumers globally
- SpaceX terminal hardware
KUIPER vs STARLINK — WHAT YOU'LL ACTUALLY SEE
Amazon's constellation is built for the same job as Starlink — low-Earth-orbit broadband — but the two look different overhead. Kuiper flies in three shells at roughly 590–630 km, a touch lower than the bulk of Starlink near 550 km, and the planned fleet of about 3,200 satellites is a fraction of Starlink's 10,000-plus. The live status panel above pulls the current active, orbit-raising and deorbiting counts straight from tracking data.
For observers, the key difference is brightness. Amazon designed Kuiper satellites with brightness mitigation — a dielectric mirror film and sun-shading meant to keep them dimmer than early Starlink units and below the naked-eye threshold of about magnitude 7. In practice that usually means binoculars, though a freshly launched cluster, or the occasional mirror-like flare, can briefly flash to naked-eye visibility in a dark twilight sky. The best window is the hour or two after dusk or before dawn, when the satellites still catch sunlight but your sky has gone dark.
What you're looking for is a steady, un-blinking point of light tracking smoothly across the sky over several minutes — anything flashing is an aircraft, not a satellite. Right after a launch the new batch can appear as a loose line of lights, the "train," before it spreads out over the following days. Deployment moved from prototypes to production launches in 2025, and the cadence is still well short of Amazon's FCC milestone, which required roughly half the constellation in orbit by 30 July 2026 — so passes will only become more frequent.
KUIPER FAQ
What is Amazon Project Kuiper / Amazon Leo?
Project Kuiper is Amazon's satellite internet constellation, rebranded as Amazon Leo in November 2025. It's a direct Starlink competitor targeting homes, businesses, airlines, and enterprise customers globally with broadband from low Earth orbit. Amazon received FCC approval in 2020, committed over $10 billion to the project, and began launching production satellites in April 2025. Amazon has long described 578 satellites as the threshold for continuous Phase-1 coverage, but that is its own planning figure, not a licence condition — and it has since said the roughly 400 satellites now in orbit are enough to begin initial service before the end of 2026, geographically limited at first. The FCC condition is a deployment milestone rather than a service gate: half the constellation (1,618) by 30 July 2026 and all 3,236 by 30 July 2029. Amazon missed the first by a wide margin and has asked the FCC for an extension.
Is Amazon Leo the same as Project Kuiper?
Yes. Amazon Leo is the current name for Project Kuiper — Amazon rebranded the constellation on 13 November 2025. The satellites, the technology and the 3,236-satellite plan are unchanged; only the name is new. Missions flown before that date still use the original "Kuiper" naming (KA-01, KA-02, and so on).
How many Amazon Leo satellites are in orbit?
OrbitalNodes is currently tracking 391 Amazon Leo satellites in orbit, deployed across roughly a dozen missions since production launches began in April 2025 — including a record-breaking Ariane 6 batch in June 2026. That makes it one of the largest constellations in orbit, but still short of the 1,618 satellites — half the planned 3,236-satellite constellation — the FCC required by July 2026, so Amazon has requested a deadline extension. The count above updates live from tracking data, so it is always current.
Can I see Amazon Leo (Kuiper) satellites with the naked eye?
Kuiper satellites are faint — around magnitude 5, near the limit of naked-eye visibility in dark skies. They're much dimmer than the ISS or Tiangong, comparable to the faintest stars visible without optical aid. During twilight when they catch sunlight they may be briefly visible from dark locations. Binoculars make them significantly easier to track. OrbitalNodes shows predicted magnitude for each pass.
How does Amazon Leo compare to Starlink?
Starlink has a massive head start — more than 10,000 operational satellites versus Kuiper's growing early-stage constellation. Technically, Kuiper orbits slightly higher (590-630km vs 550km) and uses three orbital shells at different inclinations. Kuiper leverages Amazon's AWS infrastructure and retail distribution. Both target satellite broadband but Kuiper is also pitching airlines (JetBlue signed up) and enterprise via AWS cloud integration.
What orbital shells does Amazon Leo (Kuiper) use?
Kuiper uses three orbital shells: 1,156 satellites at 590km in 33.0° inclination orbits, 1,296 satellites at 610km in 42.0° inclination optimised for mid-latitude regions, and 784 satellites at 630km in 51.9° inclination covering higher latitudes. This multi-shell architecture covers most of Earth's population with the minimum total satellite count.
Will Amazon Leo meet its FCC deadline?
The July 2026 milestone is gone. Amazon’s 2020 licence required 1,618 satellites — half the constellation — in orbit by 30 July 2026, and it reached that date with fewer than 400. In January 2026 Amazon asked the FCC for a 24-month extension or a waiver; on 5 June the FCC declined the extension and granted a limited waiver, removing the halfway milestone altogether. The condition is a spectrum penalty: satellites launched after 30 July 2026 lose the Ka/Ku priority they held from the 2020 and 2021 processing rounds until 30 March 2028, or until Amazon reaches 50% of the constellation, whichever comes first. The full-deployment deadline of 30 July 2029 for all 3,236 satellites is unchanged.
Will Amazon Leo affect the night sky?
At 3,236 satellites Kuiper will add meaningfully to LEO crowding. Individual satellites at magnitude 5 are fainter than Starlinks but collectively they increase sky brightness and astrophotography interference. Amazon has not published brightness mitigation plans. A study found Amazon Leo satellites create streaks in astronomical images comparable to early Starlink. This is an active concern in the astronomy community.
How does OrbitalNodes track Amazon Leo satellites?
OrbitalNodes fetches live TLE data for all tracked Amazon Leo satellites and propagates orbits using the SGP4 algorithm — the same method used by space agencies worldwide. The constellation counter shows how many are above your local horizon right now. New satellites are added to the tracker within hours of their TLE data appearing in public catalogs after each launch.