United Launch Alliance (ULA) flew only its second Atlas V of 2023, as Amazon’s subsidiary Kuiper Systems LLC is finally placed its first Kuiper demonstration satellites into orbit. This week also featured a launch from China, three Falcon 9 Starlink launches, a Virgin Galactic suborbital tourist flight, and one of the final flights for the original Vega small satellite launcher.
The Project Kuiper Protoflight is the first flight of Amazon’s Kuiper broadband satellite constellation, which is a direct competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink. Just hours before the scheduled Kuiper launch, Virgin Galactic flew the first Pakistani to the edge of space along with five other people on a suborbital flight aboard VSS Unity.