- Amazon Leo is requesting a 2-year extension from the FCC to launch its constellation of LEO satellites
- It will only have about 700 satellites in orbit by July 30, 2026, falling short of its 1,618 commitment
- The FCC will probably grant the request, especially given the fact that Amazon Leo has won a lot of BEAD awards
Unsurprisingly, Amazon Leo has filed a request for an extension with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to meet its upcoming satellite launch deadline. Amazon had committed to launch 1,618 satellites by July 30, 2026. But it only has 180 in orbit currently and cannot possibly meet the deadline.
The July deadline is an interim milestone, in which Amazon had promised to have launched more than half of its full constellation of 3,232 satellites.
Now, the company wants a 24-month extension and promises to launch all of its 3,232 satellites by the final deadline of July 30, 2028.
According to its filing with the FCC, Amazon plans to have about 700 satellites in orbit by July 30, 2026.
The company says it can’t meet the interim deadline mainly because of a shortage in launch capacity. “Amazon Leo is producing satellites considerably faster than others can launch them,” states its FCC filing. “Amazon Leo is capable of consistently manufacturing 30 satellites per week or over 1,500 satellites per year.”
But Amazon completed only seven of the more than 20 launches originally scheduled for 2025. The rest were delayed for a variety of reasons, which Amazon says were beyond its control, including weather conditions, prioritization of government launches and technical issues with contracted launch vehicles.
Amazon tells the FCC that overriding public interest considerations favor granting the extension because Amazon Leo “stands on the doorstep of offering U.S. customers a competitive and innovative new service,” and strict enforcement of the July deadline would interrupt or halt that effort.
The FCC also is stuck between a rock and a hard place because Amazon has won about 415,000 bids worth almost $300 million from the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. Its satellite broadband competitor Starlink has won about 473,000 BEAD bids.
If the FCC refuses to grant Amazon’s extension request, where would that leave the BEAD program?
Saw this coming from a mile away
Amazon’s request for an extension was predicted by Recon Analytics analyst Roger Entner in December, 2025 as part of his comprehensive satellite report.
Entner wrote at the time that Amazon faced a mathematical impossibility of deploying enough satellites to meet its launch commitment by July 2026, and that its survival would depend entirely on regulatory relief from the FCC.
Today, Entner said, “It is inevitable that Amazon’s extension request is granted, probably with conditions. Significant parts of the BEAD program, and with it, millions of Americans in rural America, are dependent on Amazon. It highlights the shortage of launch capacity for all the satellite providers excluding Starlink.”
The Fiber Broadband Association sent this comment to Fierce: "NTIA’s BEAD program is essential to ensuring rural America has timely access to reliable, scalable and future-ready high-speed broadband, with the objective that no community or household is left behind. That goal depends on all sub-recipients adhering to the program’s guidelines and delivering networks that meet BEAD’s performance, accountability and reliability standards.”
For its part Amazon Leo says it will 100% meet its final launch commitments by the 2028 deadline, and it has currently contracted for 102 launches across four providers: Arianespace, Blue Origin, ULA and SpaceX.