OneWeb launches 36 more satellites

BRITISH space internet company OneWeb on Thursday (1) successfully launched another 36 satellites, taking its in-orbit mega-constellation to 254.

With the current number of satellites, the company is planning to offer a commercial service to a great swathe of the Northern Hemisphere by the end of 2021.

"These things don't happen overnight; there's been a tremendous amount of hard work taking place over the last few months. But this launch is special," OneWeb chief executive officer Neil Masterson said.

"This is the one that gives us connectivity from 50 degrees North latitude to the North Pole, and covers Northern Europe, the UK, Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Iceland," he told BBC News.

The latest batch of satellites went up from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Far East of Russia.

The Soyuz carrier rocket left the launch pad at 21:48 local time, and confirmation of the successful release was achieved about five hours later.

Last year, Indian conglomerate Bharti Global along with the British government rescued OneWeb out of banckruptcy, each putting $500 million (£400m) into the struggling firm.

Since then, other investors have also joined the project.

Moreover, Bharti Global’s decision to inject $500m (£362m) into the ventures will complete the necessary financing to roll out the remainder of the mega-constellation.

The aim is to create an orbiting fleet of some 650 spacecraft, which would require 10 more launches, and should be completed by mid of 2022.

On Sunday (27) OneWeb signed a memorandum of understanding with the British telecoms provider, BT. The two entities will explore ways to work together in Britain and worldwide.

BT could take a very large share of the connectivity capacity over Britain, but it would deploy OneWeb as part of its broadband solutions.

Meanwhile, ministers are pushing a policy called Project Gigabit, which aims to improve rural broadband coverage. OneWeb is expected to play an important role in this initiative.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, "Backed by the British government, OneWeb proves what is possible when public and private investment come together, putting the UK at the forefront of the latest technologies, opening up new markets, and ultimately transforming the lives of people around the world."

In the internet mega-constellation business, OneWeb competes with Starlink, which is being set up by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and his SpaceX rocket company.