OneWeb has continued to build momentum after launching an additional 34 broadband satellites into orbit.
Arianespace carried out the launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 21 August at 23:13 BST. The new satellites were released in nine groups over a period of three hours and 45 minutes, and ground teams successfully established contact with every satellite.
Neil Masterson, Chief Executive Officer of OneWeb, said:
“Following the successful completion of our ‘Five to 50’ mission, we are building on our success and embarking on an ambitious back-to-back launch program through the end of 2021.
Demand for our services from customers around the world is strong, and we are excited to scale our network in advance of commercial service.
This achievement is the result of our talented team and global partners, who work tirelessly every day to deploy OneWeb’s constellation and extend connectivity to the hardest-to-reach places.”
Until June, the UK Government was OneWeb’s largest stakeholder. That changed after Bharti Global invested an additional $500 million, acquiring a 39 percent stake in the company.
“In just a year and during a global pandemic, together we have transformed OneWeb, bringing the operation back to full scale,” Shravin Mittal, Managing Director of Bharti Global, said in June.
OneWeb continues to draw investment from other major shareholders, including SoftBank, Eutelsat, Hanwha, and Hughes Network Systems.
Although OneWeb remains behind the industry leader Starlink in total satellites deployed (Starlink had 1,735 versus OneWeb’s 288 at the time of reporting), OneWeb is positioning itself as a strong competitor in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications market.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, Executive Chairman of OneWeb, added:
“OneWeb presents a unique investment opportunity at a pivotal moment in the commercialisation of space.
With its global ITU LEO spectrum priority, telco partnerships, launch momentum, and dependable satellites, OneWeb is prepared to meet the pressing needs for high-speed broadband connectivity in underserved areas.
Nation-states can accelerate universal service goals, telecommunications providers can bolster backhaul capacity, and enterprises and governments can connect remote installations.”
In June, OneWeb signed an agreement with BT to explore ways to improve connectivity in particularly challenging or rural locations.
The company says it remains on schedule to deliver global service in 2022, although it has scaled back its original plan for a second-phase constellation from 48,000 satellites to 6,372 satellites.
(Image Credit: Roscosmos, TsENKI)
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