The heavy version of Europe's Ariane 6 rocket launched for the first time Thursday, hauling 32 spacecraft to low-Earth orbit for Amazon's satellite broadband constellation.

The Ariane 6 rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Center on the northeastern coast of South America at 11:45 am EST (16:45 UTC), quickly soaring into a clear sky at the tropical spaceport on the power of a hydrogen-fueled main engine and four strap-on solid rocket boosters.

This Ariane 6 configuration, called Ariane 64, is the first to use the rocket's full complement of four boosters. Collectively, the rocket generated more than 3.4 million pounds of thrust (15,400 kilonewtons) of thrust as it steered northeast over the Atlantic Ocean. Less than two hours later, the rocket's upper stage released all 32 of Amazon's satellites into an on-target orbit at an altitude of 289 miles (465 kilometers).

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In April 2025, Comcast President Mike Cavanagh bemoaned that the company's cable broadband division was "not winning in the marketplace” amid increased competition from fiber and fixed wireless Internet service providers.

Cavanagh identified some problems that had been obvious to Comcast customers for many years: Its prices aren’t transparent enough and rise too frequently, and dealing with the company is too difficult. Comcast sought to fix the problems with a five-year price guarantee, one year of free Xfinity Mobile service for home Internet customers, and plans with unlimited data instead of punitive data caps. But the company is still losing broadband customers at a higher-than-expected rate.

In Q4 2025 earnings announced today, Comcast reported a net loss of 181,000 residential and business broadband customers in the US. The loss consists of 178,000 residential Internet customers and 3,000 business customers.

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