Amazon has asked regulators for more time to meet agreed milestones on the deployment of its Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper) low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation.

Citing circumstances beyond its control, the company is requesting another two years to deliver on its agreement to deploy 1,600 satellites by July 2026, according to a filing with the FCC made public on Friday.

Failure to launch half of its planned 3,236-satellite constellation by its current target date could see the company risk losing its FCC license to operate the satellite network.

The company expects to have only deployed 700 satellites by July 30, which ought to then make it the second-largest constellation, outpacing Eutelsat-Oneweb’s 600+ fleet. The company states it has set aside at least $10 billion to build the Leo network.

“Amazon Leo is engaged in full-scale deployment and stands on the doorstep of offering US customers a competitive and innovative new service,” the company wrote in the filing. “An extension would enable this rapid and ongoing deployment to continue, while strict enforcement would interrupt or halt this effort.”

The company blames manufacturing disruptions and other setbacks with launch vehicles, exacerbating existing launch bottlenecks. Amazon has booked more than 100 launches, each set to deploy dozens of satellites at once, including more than ten from SpaceX and a dozen with Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Leo is “producing satellites considerably faster than others can launch them,” the company wrote. “The development timelines for these next-generation [launch] vehicles have extended beyond initial projections, contributing to Amazon Leo’s deployment delays.”

The launch bottleneck is a phenomenon of the space industry to table launchers on the scale of SpaceX, forcing many operators to fly with the leading Elon Musk company, thought to discriminate in its launch priority. Engineering setbacks have delayed the rollout of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur, Arianespace’s Ariane 6, and most relevantly, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket.

After resorting to buying Falcon 9 launch space in 2025, Amazon found itself in the worst of both worlds, in which it went to the trouble of shopping around with SpaceX’s rivals before coming crawling back to Musk anyway, and drawing attention to the issue by having to seek a more flexible deadline from the FCC.

Plans for the company’s Project Kuiper constellation were first revealed in 2019. Amazon now has more than 100 of the 3,200+ planned Leo satellites in orbit. It aims to begin delivering services to its first customers later this year, ahead of a wider roll-out. To date, Amazon has signed deals with telecoms firms including Vodafone and Vodacom, Verizon, NBN Co., and Vrio, as well as airline JetBlue. An AWS deal with mining company Gold Fields mentioned using Kuiper for connectivity at its remote locations.

Amazon Leo is set to launch with Arianespace for the first time on February 12, via its Ariane 64, the four-booster configuration of the long-awaited Ariane 6.

Blue Origin separately plans to deploy 5,408 satellites in low-(LEO) and medium-Earth orbit (MEO). Deployment of these TeraWave satellites is expected to begin in the last quarter of 2027.

Industry consultant Tim Farrar suggested the timing of the request “seems like more than a coincidence after the Blue Origin TeraWave announcement led to speculation about a spinoff of Amazon Leo to [Blue Origin],” in posts via the social media app X.

“It doesn’t seem particularly wise for Amazon to plan on launching 3,200 of the current design, rather than moving to a more advanced model that will be more competitive with Starlink V3. However, it will at least quiet any questions about Amazon Leo’s future for now,” Farrar wrote. “That’s really important when Amazon Leo are trying hard to win customer commitments in the coming months, especially after recent layoffs at the company.”