OneWeb launches another 36 LEO satellites

OneWeb, a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications operator, co-owned by Bharti Global and the UK government, launched another batch of 36 satellites by Arianespace from the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia. The latest launch takes OneWeb’s total in-orbit constellation to 218 satellites. These would form part of OneWeb’s 648 LEO satellite fleet that will deliver high-speed, low-latency global connectivity.This represents the fourth in a five-launch programme to fulfil the ‘Five to 50’ service, which will enable OneWeb to offer connectivity across the UK, Alaska, Northern Europe, Greenland, the Arctic Seas and Canada. The service is expected to be switched on before the end of the year and OneWeb intends to make global services available in 2022. “Today’s successful launch is another execution milestone that puts us one launch away from delivering high speed, low latency connectivity to Alaska, Canada, Greenland, UK, and Northern Europe,” OneWeb CEO Neil Masterson said in a media statement on Saturday. The company’s satellites are built by OneWeb Satellites, a OneWeb and Airbus joint venture facility in Florida that can produce two satellites a day. The latest satellites launch comes just a month after Bharti-backed OneWeb announced plans to raise $550 million (Rs 4,103 crore) by selling a 24% stake to Eutelsat Communications, bringing its total funding to $1.9 billion and taking it closer to launching a first-generation fleet of 648 satellites next year.After the transaction, Eutelsat, a French geo-stationary satellite operator, Bharti Global and the UK government will each hold a 24% stake in OneWeb, a top Bharti executive said. SoftBank, Hughes Network Systems and other minority investors will collectively own 28%. Last November, Bharti Global MD Shravin Mittal had said OneWeb is open to entering India either directly or through a commercial partnership, involving either the JV route or a bandwidth capacity leasing pact, even as it gears up to launch fast broadband services in the country by June 2022.Bharti Global is the overseas arm of Bharti Enterprises -- the holding company of Bharti Airtel, India’s second-largest telco.

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