Vulcan stacking two launches for Amazon. In a wide-ranging interview with Ars, Amazon Leo officials discussed their progress toward delivering an orbital broadband service to customers back on Earth. Among the challenges faced by the company was launch. “From day one we decided to go with a diverse set of partners to supply us with rockets,” Amazon Leo VP Rajeev Badyal said. “We started off with ULA, Blue Origin, Arianespace, and SpaceX. We signed deals with all four of them. We knew there was risk, but we had to get heavy lift vehicles.”

Vulcan on deck … Badyal said the company is currently working on back-to-back launches on Vulcan this year. “I can say we’re weeks away from launching on Vulcan,” he said. “Things are on track. We’ll follow that with an Arianespace launch and at least one more Vulcan this year. I can also tell you the infrastructure that we put and built with ULA now allows us to process two rockets simultaneously. So right now, there are two vehicle integration facilities, and both have a Vulcan rocket that is vertical and getting ready for our missions.”

Blue Origin building three more pads. In an interview with Fox News this week, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said the company was going to construct three more launch pads after the rebuild of LC-36A to accommodate New Glenn. “We’re building three more pads,” Bezos said. “So we’re building—we’ll have a total of four pads that we’re under construction right now.” Bezos said this in the context of the company’s recent request to the FAA for 50 launches a year from Florida.

Bezos has much bigger goals long-term … “Our goal is to fly every day,” Bezos said. “And then once we’re flying every day, we want to fly every hour. And then once we’re flying every hour, we want to fly every minute. And by the way, that’s where I lose the team.” Bezos has long talked about making spaceflight routine, but launches every minute seems a tad ambitious for a company that has yet to launch once a month.

Next three launches

October 9: Long March 12 | Unknown payload | Wenchang Space Launch Site, China | 19:25 UTC

October 10: Falcon 9 | Tranche 1, Transport Layer A | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 07:29 UTC

October 12: Falcon 9 | Starlink 15-25 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 23:00 UTC