Cape Canaveral: Is there a launch today? Upcoming SpaceX, NASA rocket launch schedule at Cape Canaveral ULA's mission marked the first of the company's 46 planned launches for Amazon and its Project Kuiper. Seven more are planned using Atlas V rockets before ULA transitions to Vulcan rockets for the next 38 launches. "We had a nice, smooth countdown. Beautiful weather. Beautiful liftoff. And Atlas V is on its way to orbit to take those 27 Kuiper satellites, put them on their way, and really start this new era in internet connectivity," Caleb Weiss, ULA launch commentator, said minutes after the April 28 liftoff during the company webcast. "So Atlas is on its way to making history again," Weiss said. However, in a video posted shortly after liftoff, Laura Forczyk, founder and executive director of the space consulting firm Astralytical, said "it's going to be a long, long time before Kuiper is at any way competitive with Starlink." Noting that Project Kuiper has been in the works since 2019, she expressed doubts that commercial service will start by year's end. "So this is six years that Amazon has been working on this. It does take a while to ramp up. It's taking a lot longer than I think a lot of people anticipated," Forczyk said By comparison, Forczyk noted that SpaceX notched its 250th dedicated Starlink launch Sunday night from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. SpaceX added two more Starlink missions Monday: one from the Cape, one from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. "Bottom line, Kuiper is way over-delayed. But I don't think it's going to make that much of a difference, simply because there is such demand for this kind of service that I think Kuiper's going to find their way," Forczyk said. In October 2023, an Atlas V launched Amazon's first two prototype satellites, KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2, from the Cape for on-orbit testing. "Project Kuiper has announced collaborations with Verizon, Vodafone, Vodacom, and NTT DOCOMO to help extend the reach of their wireless networks; signed a distribution agreement with DIRECTV Latin America and Sky Brasil to reach more customers in South America; and has been awarded contracts from government agencies like NASA, DARPA, and the Defense Innovation Unit," an Amazon fact sheet said. For the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space.