The satellites are the first of 3236 Amazon plans to send into low-Earth orbit for Project Kuiper, a $US10 billion ($A16 billion) effort unveiled in 2019 to beam broadband internet globally for consumers, businesses and governments - customers that SpaceX has courted for years with its powerful Starlink business.
Sitting atop an Atlas V rocket from the Boeing and Lockheed Martin joint-venture United Launch Alliance, the batch of 27 satellites was lofted into space on Monday from the rocket company's launch pad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Bad weather scrubbed an initial launch attempt on April 9.
Kuiper is arguably Amazon's biggest bet under way, pitting it against Starlink as well as global telecommunications providers like AT&T and T-Mobile. The company has positioned the service as a boon to rural areas where connectivity is sparse or nonexistent.
The mission to deploy the first operational satellites has been delayed more than a year - Amazon once hoped it could launch the inaugural batch in early 2024.
The company faces a deadline set by the US Federal Communications Commission to deploy half its constellation, 1618 satellites, by mid-2026, but its slower start means Amazon is likely to seek an extension, analysts say.
Hours or possibly days after the launch, Amazon is expected to publicly confirm initial contact with all of the satellites from its mission operations centre in Redmond, Washington. If all goes as planned, the company said it expects to "begin delivering service to customers later this year."
The Web services and e-commerce giant's Project Kuiper is an ambitious foray into space, with a late start in a market dominated by SpaceX.
But Amazon executives see the company's deep consumer product experience and established cloud computing business that Kuiper will connect with as an edge over Starlink.
Elon Musk's SpaceX, with a unique edge as both a satellite operator and launch company with its reusable Falcon 9, has put more than 8000 Starlink satellites in orbit since 2019, marking its 250th dedicated Starlink launch on Monday.
Its deployment pace has hastened to at least one Starlink mission per week, each rocket with roughly two-dozen satellites on board to expand the network's bandwidth and replace outdated satellites.
That quick pace has helped Musk's company amass more than five million internet users across 125 countries, upend the global satellite communications market and woo military and intelligence agencies that have sought to use Starlink and its manufacturing line for sensitive national security programs.
