United Launch Alliance launched its latest Atlas 5 rocket, which carried a batch of 29 Amazon Leo satellites to low Earth orbit. The mission was the largest and heaviest payload carried to orbit by an Atlas 5 rocket to date, according to ULA.
The mission was called Amazon Leo 5 by ULA and Leo Atlas 5 (LA-05) by Amazon. This was the fifth launch of operational satellites by ULA and the ninth for the constellation, which included one flight by Arianespace’s Ariane 6 rocket and three flights on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets.
Liftoff of LA-05 happened Saturday, April 4, at 1:46 a.m. EDT (0546 UTC). The rocket headed out on a north-easterly trajectory upon leaving the launch pad. U.S. Space Force meteorologists predicted a 90 percent chance of acceptable weather for the launch.
After completing its launch readiness review on March 26, the following morning, ULA began rolling out its 62.5-meter-tall (205 ft) rocket from its Vertical Integration Facility out to the pad at Space Launch Complex 41. The move began around 10 a.m. EDT (1400 UTC) and ULA reported a “hard down” at the pad at 11:16 a.m. EDT (1516 UTC).
However, with high winds forecast for the rocket’s original launch date of March 29, ULA was forced to push back the launch until the next available launch date at Cape Canaveral after NASA’s Artemis 2 launch.
