A rocket that was supposed to open a new chapter for Amazon's internet constellation never made it to orbit. United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 12:40 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, November 15 — and about ten minutes later, during the firing of its Centaur upper stage, something went wrong. All 40 Amazon Leo satellites on board were lost. It was the first outright failure of a United Launch Alliance rocket since the company was formed in 2006.
The photo above is from an earlier Vulcan launch — the Cert-2 test flight in October 2024 — the same rocket leaving the same pad, Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
For the first minute and a half, everything looked right. The six solid boosters strapped to the 214-foot rocket burned out and peeled away about one minute and 35 seconds after liftoff, exactly as planned, and the two methane-burning BE-4 engines kept pushing the rocket toward orbit on 3.8 million pounds of thrust. But the first stage appeared to burn longer than planned, and stage separation came later than expected. Telemetry showed the hydrogen-fueled Centaur upper stage making unusual orientation adjustments early in its planned 12-minute, 15-second burn, and the broadcast ended without confirming whether the burn had run its full course.
About 50 minutes after liftoff, ULA confirmed the worst. “Based on data received by our Launch Director, we confirm that the Vulcan vehicle launched from Space Launch Complex 41 suffered an anomaly 10 minutes into the flight and failed to deliver the Amazon mission to orbit,” the company said in a statement. “We will work closely with our customer and other appropriate organizations to find the cause, determine the appropriate corrective action and return to flight as quickly as possible.” The cause is not yet known.
THE STORY SO FAR
February 12, 2026 — Vulcan's previous flight, the USSF-87 national security mission, is marred by a booster nozzle malfunction shortly after liftoff — the second such nozzle problem, after a burn-through in 2024.
February–November 2026 — ULA and Northrop Grumman spend nine months fixing the nozzle problem; chief executive Mark Peller says three credible causes were found and mitigated. The U.S. Space Force keeps Vulcan's national security launches on hold, while commercial flights are cleared to continue.
Friday, November 13 — The Amazon Leo 1 launch attempt is scrubbed after problems knock out a gaseous nitrogen plant that serves several launch providers at the Cape.
Saturday, November 14 — A second attempt is delayed by network problems between the Vulcan rocket and ground systems.
Sunday, November 15, seconds before liftoff — Controllers call a hold at T-minus 20 seconds over an unexplained technical issue. ULA resolves it, and the rocket lifts off at 12:40 p.m. Eastern, at the end of the window. Whether the countdown problem played any role is not yet known.
Sunday, November 15, about 12:41 p.m. — All six solid rocket boosters separate, about one minute and 35 seconds into flight. They appear to work normally.
Sunday, November 15, about 12:46 p.m. — The Centaur upper stage ignites and the payload fairing jettisons, about six minutes after liftoff, roughly 95 miles above Earth east of Charleston, South Carolina.
Sunday, November 15, about 12:50 p.m. — Ten minutes into the flight, the anomaly strikes during the Centaur burn. The 40 Amazon Leo satellites never reach orbit.
Sunday, November 15, about 1:30 p.m. — ULA confirms the failure in a public statement, about 50 minutes after liftoff.
Sunday, November 15, 1:42 p.m. — NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman offers his agency's help on X: “The team at @NASA is available to assist in all matters related to the investigation and remediation effort. Artemis, Moon Base, and the nation need ULA.”
BY THE NUMBERS
40 — Amazon Leo satellites lost on the flight.
5 — Vulcan flights so far. Sunday was the rocket's first launch in nine months.
38 — Vulcan flights Amazon has bought to build its Leo constellation. This was the first of them.
3,300 — satellites Amazon needs in orbit to complete the Leo constellation. Sunday's flight would have brought the total launched to 436.
3.8 million — pounds of thrust at liftoff, from six solid boosters and two BE-4 engines.
2006 — the year United Launch Alliance was formed. Sunday was its first outright mission failure.
WHY IT MATTERS
Vulcan is the rocket ULA built to replace its Atlas 5 fleet, and Amazon is its biggest customer. The Leo constellation is Amazon's answer to SpaceX's Starlink. ULA has already flown eight Leo missions on Atlas 5 rockets, but Vulcan was supposed to take over the heavy lifting — 38 launches under contract, every one of which now waits on the failure investigation. Amazon has also booked 24 Leo launches on Blue Origin's New Glenn, 24 on Europe's Ariane 6, and 13 on SpaceX's Falcon 9 — but New Glenn is itself grounded after an explosion on the pad last May, traced to an oxygen valve problem in one of its BE-4 engines. The BE-4 is the same engine that powers Vulcan's first stage, and ULA says Sunday's engines had been retrofitted with a fix for that valve issue. Nobody has linked the two failures — Sunday's cause is still unknown — but Amazon's schedule now depends on two rockets that both need to get flying again.
“Based on data received by our Launch Director, we confirm that the Vulcan vehicle launched from Space Launch Complex 41 suffered an anomaly 10 minutes into the flight and failed to deliver the Amazon mission to orbit.” — United Launch Alliance, in a statement after the launch
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
The first job is the investigation. ULA promises full transparency, with customers given visibility into the process. Engineers will pull the flight telemetry apart to find what went wrong during the Centaur burn — and until they do, Vulcan faces what Spaceflight Now called a potentially significant grounding. That matters beyond Amazon: the Space Force is still waiting to clear Vulcan for national security launches, and ULA and NASA are building a larger Centaur upper stage together for future Artemis Moon missions.
Amazon has not said when it will try again: its next Leo satellites wait for ULA's investigation — or fly on another booked rocket. The count stands at 396 Leo satellites launched to date, and a 38-launch plan that starts with a failure.
Twenty years without a total failure is a record any rocket company would envy. It ended on a Sunday afternoon in Florida, ten minutes into a routine flight.
