内容来源：https://www.geekwire.com/2026/amazon-leo-double-pace-roll-out-satellite-broadband/

内容总结：

亚马逊“利奥”卫星宽带加速布局：计划数月内启动商用服务，追赶星链挑战重重

美国华盛顿州雷德蒙德讯——亚马逊旗下卫星宽带项目“利奥”（Amazon Leo）正进入关键冲刺阶段。项目商业与产品副总裁克里斯·韦伯近日在接受采访时透露，面向个人用户的卫星宽带服务将在“数月内”正式上线，但初期仅覆盖南北半球中纬度地区。韦伯强调，团队未来一年的核心主题是“加速”，计划将发射次数和卫星部署数量翻倍，以追赶对手SpaceX的“星链”网络。

目前，亚马逊利奥已通过11次发射将304颗卫星送入轨道，但距离其第一阶段部署目标（3232颗卫星）仍有巨大差距。更紧迫的是，美国联邦通信委员会要求该公司在7月底前完成半数卫星部署，亚马逊已申请两年延期。韦伯坦言，火箭运力短缺是主要瓶颈——由于蓝色起源、联合发射联盟等供应商的火箭供应不足，位于佛罗里达的仓库中积压了数百颗等待发射的卫星。为此，亚马逊已签订100次火箭发射合同（史上最大规模），并首次向竞争对手SpaceX采购发射服务。

在服务模式上，利奥将提供三档套餐：便携式Nano终端（下载速度100Mbps）、Pro终端（400Mbps）及Ultra大天线终端（下载1Gbps/上传400Mbps）。韦伯表示，定价尚未公布，但亚马逊CEO安迪·贾西承诺将“低于替代方案”。项目已通过亚马逊云服务（AWS）为企业客户提供私密网络连接，未来可能整合Prime Video、Fire TV、Ring等生态产品。此外，利奥正与达美航空、捷蓝航空洽谈机上宽带服务，并通过收购Globalstar布局手机直连卫星通信。

尽管阿尔法经济咨询公司的研究预测，低轨卫星宽带到2035年可为全球GDP贡献320亿至8630亿美元，但利奥面临的市场考验依然严峻。星链目前在轨卫星超10000颗，用户逾1200万。韦伯表示：“我们每天都会从政府和商业客户那里获得需求信号，当前的首要任务是打造用户喜爱的服务——只要这一点做对了，一切扩张都会水到渠成。”

中文翻译：

雷德蒙德，华盛顿州——克里斯·韦伯尚未准备好透露亚马逊利奥何时将正式开始接受个人用户注册卫星宽带服务，但届时，他定会身着合适的行头亮相首秀。
在位于雷德蒙德的亚马逊利奥任务运营中心最近的一次采访中，韦伯脚穿一双紫色跑鞋，鞋后跟印有利奥的品牌标识。
“这不是紫色，这是氪星色，”韦伯说道，他于2024年从GitLab加盟亚马逊利奥，担任业务与产品副总裁。“当我们的推进器在太空中点火时，就会呈现氪星色，所以我们选了这个颜色。在亚马逊的色系里显然能找到它……我们在品牌上倾注了许多深意与巧思，对此我们感到非常兴奋。”
一年前，亚马逊利奥（前身为“柯伊伯计划”）启动了耗资数十亿美元的计划，发射数千颗卫星，为全球提供宽带互联网接入服务。截至目前，已通过11次发射部署了304颗卫星——韦伯表示，亚马逊利奥团队在未来一年将加倍努力。
“今后的主题是加速，”他说。“我们已明确表示，未来12个月内，发射次数和卫星数量都将翻倍，所有工作都围绕加速展开。”
亚马逊利奥已开始以预览形式向部分企业客户提供服务，韦伯暗示，商业服务的正式推出已为时不远。但亚马逊利奥并不会立刻覆盖所有地区。
“我们公开说过，在未来几个月内——不是几年后——我们将启动服务，范围将覆盖南北半球，因为你需要足够的卫星来确保用户终端能看到一颗卫星，”他说。“因此，我们将在未来几个月内推出固定服务。随着卫星数量增加，覆盖范围将逐步向地理中心扩展。”
追赶任务依然艰巨：即便亚马逊利奥在接下来一年将速度翻倍，它仍远落后于SpaceX的星链网络，后者目前在轨卫星超过1万颗，用户超过1200万。
缩小与星链的差距并非推动亚马逊利奥提速的唯一因素：根据美国联邦通信委员会颁发的许可证条款，亚马逊需在7月底前部署其计划中的3232颗第一代卫星的一半。该公司正在寻求两年的延期；上个月，FCC主席布伦丹·卡尔表示，该机构仍在“审核亚马逊申请的相关文件”。
即使假设FCC批准延期，且利奥的部署速度到2027年中期翻倍，亚马逊仍需在2028年中期前将速度提升至1616颗卫星，随后进一步加快，才能在2029年中期前将所有3232颗卫星送入近地轨道。

等待火箭

在提交给FCC的文件中，亚马逊表示因运载火箭可用性有限，不得不放缓部署进度。更糟的是，亚马逊创始人杰夫·贝佐斯的蓝色起源太空风险公司——亚马逊利奥的发射服务提供商之一——因上月一次无关的发射失败，不得不暂停其重型火箭“新格伦”的发射。
火箭短缺迫使亚马逊缩减其位于柯克兰的制造工厂每天5颗卫星的目标产量。韦伯表示，数百颗卫星正存放在佛罗里达州的处理设施中，等待发射升空。
“我上次听说，我们已经把接下来六批卫星装进了分配器，随时准备交给发射服务商，”他说。
韦伯表示，他相信蓝色起源、联合发射联盟和阿丽亚娜航天公司的重型火箭将在未来一年支持更高的发射频率。亚马逊甚至从SpaceX购买发射服务以加速卫星部署。
“我们已经签约了100次火箭发射，这是太空史上规模最大的合同，”他说。“因此，承诺是实打实的。我们还在继续寻找获取更多发射机会并提前发射日程的方法。”
早在2020年，亚马逊就表示计划投入超过100亿美元来启动亚马逊利奥项目。此后，一些行业观察人士估计，成本可能高达200亿美元。但预计的回报将远超这些成本。
就在本周，由亚马逊委托、牛津经济研究院进行的一项市场研究估计，到2035年，近地轨道卫星提供的宽带服务可为全球GDP增加320亿至8630亿美元，并在全球范围内支持80万至2100万个就业岗位。到2035年，将有7800万至4.21亿人使用卫星宽带，具体取决于这家英国咨询公司分析的哪种情景成为现实。

走进任务控制中心

亚马逊一直谨慎保护其卫星运营的“独门秘籍”——这意味着你很难找到其完全展开卫星的正面照片，或雷蒙德任务运营中心内部显示系统的图像。
可以说，该任务运营中心的布局与休斯顿的NASA任务控制中心类似，但规模较小。大多数时候，卫星运行由几名控制人员监控，但发射时，团队人数可增至约20人。
目前的中心比亚马逊2023年开始测试两颗原型卫星时使用的设施更大。它在首批运营卫星发射前不久投入使用。一排排计算机控制台转角处设有企业风格的零食吧，中心后墙上安装的舷窗让访客能从门外休息室窥见内部。
亚马逊在讨论卫星宽带定价时也格外谨慎。在上月发布的年度股东信中，亚马逊CEO安迪·贾西承诺，利奥的服务将“以低于其他替代方案的价格提供”。
该公司已描述了三个服务等级：

• Nano：7x7英寸便携天线，下载速度最高100兆比特每秒。
• Pro：11x11英寸天线，支持400兆比特每秒的下载速度。
• Ultra：20x30英寸天线，提供最高1吉比特每秒的下载速度和400兆比特每秒的上传速度。
  “我们展示了1.3吉比特的下行视频，上行超过400兆比特每秒，这相当惊人，”韦伯说。“我们对设计非常有信心。稳定性和质量是我们的首要任务，尤其是在推进过程中。”
  尽管亚马逊尚未完全准备好公布定价——无论是终端价格还是订阅费用——韦伯表示，他的团队对价格定位已有清晰把握。
  “这是我们多年来的大量工作，考察了许多不同的外部和内部指标，”他说。“好消息是，尤其是在政府和商业客户方面，我们每天都能收到需求信号，并且每天都与客户沟通……我们获得了极好的信号，能够预测需求，不仅包括用户终端的需求，还包括他们所需的服务计划、上下行速度要求。”

卫星协同效应

亚马逊还在优化其利用利奥与其他业务线（首先是亚马逊云服务）协同效应的策略。
“我们已通过AWS宣布了私有网络选项，如果你是企业或政府客户，你可以从用户终端通过天线直接进入你的AWS数据资产、计算资产或私有数据中心，而无需经过互联网，”韦伯说。“这是巨大的价值。而且，这确实引起了商业和政府客户的强烈共鸣。”
普通消费者也将看到协同效应，可能涉及Prime Video、Fire TV、Ring、Zoox，甚至亚马逊配送服务。“在不透露任何具体信息的前提下，我想说，我们对为亚马逊产品和服务体系内的客户带来差异化新价值感到非常兴奋，”韦伯说。
与SpaceX一样，亚马逊利奥正与达美航空和捷蓝航空等公司敲定机上连接协议，并探索连接技术的最新前沿：直接到设备的卫星服务。
“我们刚刚宣布收购全球星，并与苹果在直接到设备方面建立了合作，”韦伯说。“这从一开始就是我们的战略的一部分，但它确实开始扩展应用场景。”
预计亚马逊将推进全球星的扩展计划并将其提升到新水平，但不会将直接到设备服务并入亚马逊利奥的宽带产品线。在韦伯看来，直接到设备市场与卫星宽带市场不同，至少在中短期内如此。
“直接到设备所做的是开辟全新的场景——那些人们目前完全没有连接的地方——现在你可以让数十亿部手机联网，从而实现语音消息之类的功能，”他说。“我的理解是，它们是拼图中的不同部分和扩展的应用场景，宽带与直接到设备是互补关系，而非替代关系。”
一些连接客户可能两者都需要。“你可以预见，在汽车领域，他们既需要宽带覆盖，也需要直接到设备的能力——后者速度较低，但提供更广泛的连接，”韦伯说。
在韦伯的水晶球里，他还看到了什么？一年后的亚马逊利奥会是什么样子？
“嗯，我可以告诉你，我们将投入运营，并且会有更多卫星入轨，因此地理覆盖范围会更广，”他说。“我一直和团队强调，也是我们专注的事情，就是打造客户喜爱的服务。这是我们的第一、第二和第三要务——因为如果我们做对了这一点，那么随着扩展，一切皆有可能。”
正如韦伯所言，亚马逊利奥最初可能面向中北纬度和中南部纬度地区的客户。互联网用户可以在Leo.Amazon.com的在线表单中输入邮政编码和电子邮件地址，获取项目进展及所在区域服务可用性的最新信息。

英文来源：

REDMOND, Wash. — Chris Weber isn’t ready to say yet exactly when Amazon Leo will start letting individual customers sign up for satellite broadband service, but when it happens, he’ll have the right wardrobe for the debut.
During a recent interview at Amazon Leo’s Mission Operations Center in Redmond, Weber sported running shoes in a shade of purple with the Leo brand emblazoned on the back.
“It’s not purple, it’s krypton,” said Weber, who came over from GitLab in 2024 to become Amazon Leo’s vice president of business and product. “Krypton is the color when our thrusters fire in space, so we picked that. It was obviously available in the Amazon palette. … There’s a lot of meaning and thought that went into our brands, and we’re quite excited about that.”
It’s been a year since Amazon Leo, formerly known as Project Kuiper, began its multibillion-dollar campaign to send up thousands of satellites to provide broadband internet access across the globe. So far, 304 satellites have been deployed over the course of 11 launches — and Weber said the Amazon Leo team will be running twice as hard in the year ahead.
“The theme moving forward is acceleration,” he said. “What we’ve said is that over the next 12 months, we’ll double the number of launches, satellites, et cetera, so everything is about accelerating that.”
Amazon Leo has already been making its service available to a select group of enterprise customers on a preview basis, and Weber signaled that the official launch of commercial service isn’t all that far away. But Amazon Leo won’t be available everywhere all at once.
“What we’ve said publicly is that in the coming months — so it’s not years away — we’ll launch, and that’ll be in the northern and southern hemisphere, because you need enough satellites to have coverage where your customer terminal is seeing a satellite,” he said. “And so we’ll launch that in the next couple of months, our fixed service. And then as we get more and more satellites up, that coverage will expand inward geographically.”
There’s a lot of catching up to do: Even if Amazon Leo doubles its pace over the next year, it’ll still be far behind SpaceX’s Starlink network, which currently has more than 10,000 satellites in orbit and more than 12 million subscribers.
Closing the gap with Starlink isn’t the only factor motivating Amazon Leo’s speedup: Under the terms of its license from the Federal Communications Commission, Amazon was supposed to deploy half of its planned 3,232 first-generation satellites by the end of July. The company is seeking a two-year extension; last month, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the agency was still “reviewing the paperwork” for Amazon’s request.
Even assuming the FCC grants the extension and Leo’s pace doubles by mid-2027, Amazon would have to increase its pace further to get to 1,616 satellites by mid-2028, and then speed up even more to get all 3,232 satellites in low Earth orbit by mid-2029.
Waiting for rockets
In its filings with the FCC, Amazon said it had to slow down its deployment schedule due to the limited availability of launch vehicles. It doesn’t help that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture — one of the launch providers for Amazon Leo — had to ground its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket temporarily due to an unrelated launch failure last month.
The rocket shortage forced Amazon to throttle back from its target production rate of five satellites a day at its Kirkland manufacturing facility. Weber said hundreds of satellites are in storage at Amazon’s processing facility in Florida, waiting for liftoff.
“The last I heard, we have like the next six [batches] stacked in the dispensers, ready to go for the launch providers to pick up,” he said.
Weber voiced confidence that heavy-lift rockets from Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance and Arianespace will support a higher launch rate in the year ahead. Amazon is even buying launches from SpaceX to accelerate satellite deployment.
“We’ve contracted for 100 rocket launches, the largest in space history,” he said. “And so, obviously, the commitment is there. We continue to look for ways to acquire additional launches and move launches up.”
Back in 2020, Amazon said it planned to spend more than $10 billion to get Amazon Leo off the ground. Since then, some industry observers have estimated the cost could amount to as much as $20 billion. But the projected costs would be more than matched by the expected payoff.
Just this week, a market study commissioned by Amazon and conducted by Oxford Economics estimated that broadband services provided by satellites in low Earth orbit could add between $32 billion and $863 billion to global GDP by 2035, and support between 800,000 and 21 million jobs worldwide. By 2035, somewhere between 78 million and 421 million people could be using satellite broadband, depending on which of the scenarios analyzed by the British-based advisory firm actually plays out.
Inside Mission Control
Amazon has been careful about protecting the “secret sauce” of its satellite operation — which means you’d be hard-pressed to find full-frontal photos of its fully deployed satellites, or pictures showing the display systems inside its Mission Operations Center in Redmond.
Suffice it to say that the MOC is laid out much like NASA’s Mission Control in Houston, but on a smaller scale. Most of the time, satellite operations are monitored by a handful of controllers, but that number can swell to about 20 team members for a launch.
The current center is larger than the facility that Amazon used for putting a couple of prototype satellites through their paces starting in 2023. It opened for business not long before the first launch of operational satellites. A corporate-style snack bar is around the corner from the rows of computer consoles, and a porthole installed on the center’s back wall lets visitors peek in from the lounge outside the doors.
Amazon has also been careful when it comes to discussing pricing for satellite broadband. In last month’s annual letter to shareholders, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy promised that Leo’s services would come “at a lower cost than alternatives.”
The company has described three tiers of service:

• Nano: 7-by-7-inch portable antenna for download speeds up to 100 megabits per second.
• Pro: 11-by-11-inch antenna supporting 400 Mbps downloads.
• Ultra: 20-by-30-inch antenna, delivering up to 1 gigabit per second for downloads and 400 Mbps for uploads.
  “We showed a downlink video of 1.3 gigabits and above the 400 on the uplink, which is quite stunning,” Weber said. “So we feel really good on the design. The stability of it, the quality is job one for us as we’re putting that up.”
  Even though Amazon isn’t quite ready to reveal its pricing, either for the terminals or for the subscriptions, Weber said his team has a good handle on what the price should be.
  “That’s a lot of work we’ve been doing over the years that looks at lots of different external metrics and internal metrics,” he said. “The good news is, particularly on the government and business side, you get demand signals every day, and we’ve been talking to customers every day. … We get incredible signals in order to be able to forecast our demand by not only customer terminal, but what’s the service plan they would need, the speeds they would need on the downlink and uplink.”
  Satellite synergies
  Amazon is also fine-tuning its strategies for taking advantages of synergies between Leo and its other business lines, starting with Amazon Web Services.
  “We’ve announced our private networking option via AWS, where if you’re a business or a government customer, you can go from your customer terminal to the antenna into your AWS data estate or computing estate or your own private data center without ever touching the internet,” Weber said. “That’s incredible value. And boy, does that resonate significantly with business and government customers.”
  Regular consumers will see synergies as well, potentially involving Prime Video, Fire TV, Ring, Zoox and even Amazon delivery services. “Without announcing anything, I would say we’re very excited about bringing differentiated new value to our customers across the Amazon set of products and services,” Weber said.
  Like SpaceX, Amazon Leo is nailing down deals for in-flight connectivity with the likes of Delta and JetBlue — and exploring the latest frontier in connectivity: direct-to-device satellite service.
  “We just announced the acquisition of Globalstar and our partnership with Apple on direct-to-device,” Weber said. “That’s been part of our strategy from the beginning, but it really starts to expand the use cases.”
  Amazon is expected to follow through on Globalstar’s expansion plans and take them to the next level, but it won’t fold its direct-to-device service into Amazon Leo’s broadband offerings. The way Weber sees it, the direct-to-device market is different from the satellite broadband market, at least in the short to medium-long term.
  “What direct-to-device does is open up brand-new scenarios where people simply don’t have connectivity today, and now you’re taking these billions of mobile handsets and making those connected so you can do voice messaging, those types of things,” he said. “The way I think about it is that they’re pieces of a puzzle and expanded use cases, with broadband and direct-to-device versus one replacing the other.”
  Some connectivity customers may want both. “You could foresee something in the automobile where they want broadband coverage, but also the ability to have direct-to-device, which is lower speed but gives you broader connectivity,” Weber said.
  What else does Weber see in his crystal ball? What will Amazon Leo look like a year from now?
  “Well, I will tell you, we’ll be in service, and we’ll have a lot more satellites up, and so we’ll have broader geographic coverage,” he said. “The thing that I talk to our team about all the time, and it’s the thing we’re focused on, is building a service that customers love. That is job number one, two and three for us — because if we get that right, then as we expand, everything else can happen.”
  As Weber said, Amazon Leo is likely to be available initially to customers in mid-northern and mid-southern latitudes. Internet users can plug their postal code and email address into an online form at Leo.Amazon.com to get updates on the project’s progress and availability in their area.