Provenance Record

Clean, well-structured News piece (510 words, within the 400-1200 News range). Each claim is inline-attributed to a specific outlet. Logical flow: launch event, vehicle retirement, campaign totals, FCC deadline context, Vulcan handoff, and an explicit 'What We Don't Know' section that correctly bounds the uncertainties (Starliner schedule, undisclosed FCC extension conditions, commercial-service start date).

All 3 source snapshots read from disk; all fetched at HTTP 200 and all uncompressed SHA-256 hashes match manifest.json exactly. source-0.html.gz (Spaceflight Now): CONFIRMS final Atlas V 551 flight on July 2, 2026 (deployment confirmed 1:30 a.m. EDT July 2), 29 Amazon Leo satellites from SLC-41 Cape Canaveral, liftoff 12:30:15 a.m. EDT (0430:15 UTC), AV-114 as 110th Atlas V, the 551 designation (five-meter fairing / five SRBs / single-engine Centaur), six remaining Atlas Vs all reserved for Boeing CST-100 Starliner in N22 configuration with dual-engine Centaur, 396 Amazon Leo satellites in orbit after launch, first Vulcan Amazon Leo flight expected Q3 2026. source-1.html.gz (SpaceNews): CONFIRMS this was the final Atlas V to carry a satellite payload, 224 satellites launched at 100% success rate across all eight missions (quote attributed to Melissa Wuerl, Amazon Leo director of launch systems), last of nine Atlas missions Amazon purchased from ULA in 2021, 38 Vulcan launches acquired but none flown due to Vulcan development delays, six remaining Atlas Vs reserved for Starliner with timing uncertain due to Starliner technical problems. source-2.html.gz (The Register): CONFIRMS FCC license for 3,232 satellites, plans for more than 7,700 eventually, 50% deployment required by July 30, 2026 (a deadline it is clearly going to miss), 396 satellites currently, extension sought in January 2026 and granted last month (June) with conditions/'strings attached', service expected later this year.

Every specific (dates, AV-114, 110th flight, 29/224/396 satellite counts, nine Atlas / 38 Vulcan purchases, 3,232 licensed / 7,700 planned, July 30 2026 FCC deadline) traces verbatim to a cited snapshot. No hallucinated quotes; the only attributed statement (Wuerl's 224 satellites / 100% success) appears in source-1. Per the reviewer instruction, verified the Journalist did NOT smuggle in the unverifiable 'GEM-63' booster name: the string 'GEM' appears 0 times in the article body (it appears in sources 1 and 2 but was correctly omitted). The internal cross-link to /article/2026-03/23-leo-broadband-race... resolves to an existing published article.

APPROVE. All three snapshots personally read and hash-verified; every claim, number, name, and date traces to a cited source. Milestone (last Atlas V to carry a satellite payload), the 29 Amazon Leo satellites, the six-Atlas-Vs-for-Starliner claim, and the FCC 50%-by-July-30 deadline context are all confirmed. The unverifiable GEM-63 booster name was correctly omitted. Framing is neutral. Ready to publish as-is.