Amazon has renamed its Project Kuiper satellite network to Amazon Leo. According to the company, Project Kuiper was always intended as a temporary code name during development.
“Like most early Amazon projects, the program needed a code name, and the team began operating as “Project Kuiper”—inspired by the Kuiper Belt, a ring of asteroids in our outer solar system,” the company said. “The code name stuck with us through many of our early milestones. Now, we’re ready to share our permanent brand for the program: Amazon Leo, a simple nod to the low Earth orbit satellite constellation that powers our network.”
Amazon now has more than 150 satellites in orbit, and customers and partners like JetBlue, L3Harris, DIRECTV Latin America, Sky Brasil, and NBN Co.
The network competes with Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet service.
The original name, Project Kuiper, refers to the Kuiper Belt, a ring of billions of rocks and ice orbiting the sun. This belt is named after the Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper.
