Glow up or blow up? Amazon announced Thursday that it was rebranding its Project Kuiper mission to Amazon Leo.
The change represents the transition from the early days of the program, Amazon officials said. The program was known by the Project Kuiper “code name” (a nod to Kuiper Belt objects, like asteroids and comets), but is now a program with 150+ sats in orbit. Many more sats are planned to bring internet to the masses, with the initial constellation expected to number 3,200 spacecraft.
“The code name stuck with us through many of our early milestones: Filing and receiving initial licenses, signing the largest set of launch contracts in history, completing a successful prototype mission, and deploying our first full batch of production satellites earlier this year,” Amazon officials wrote in a blog post. “Now, we’re ready to share our permanent brand for the program.”
Name change: The name both makes reference to LEO, where the satellites will operate, and brings the product into the Amazon-branded suite of products as the company prepares to roll out commercial services—and formally take on SpaceX’s Starlink.
Amazon sent its first non-prototype satellites into orbit in April. The most recent mission in October brought two dozen birds to LEO. Company officials have said they are hoping to start offering services to customers before the end of this year.
However, the change seems to be more about branding than any change in business. The press release clearly states that the company’s “long-term mission remains the same,” heralding recent achievements such as deals with partners such as JetBlue, L3Harris, and Australia’s National Broadband Network operator.
Reaction: In general, people don’t like change, so it’s no surprise that reactions to the name change on social media were largely negative. “I hate this so much. @JeffBezos Can you fix this please,” AstroForge CEO Matt Gialich wrote in a post on X.
