OneWeb launches another 36-odd LEO satellites from Russia

OneWeb, a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications operator, co-owned by the Bharti group 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 358 satellites, over half of OneWeb’s entire 648 LEO satellite fleet that will deliver high-speed, low-latency global connectivity.

“With this launch, OneWeb celebrates the start of service demonstrations that showcase the satellite network’s hardware and capabilities across an array of applications,” the company said in an official statement Thursday. It has demo centres open at the company’s headquarters in London and at the Westcott Venture Park Innovation Centre in Buckinghamshire, as well as in the US. in Talkeetna, Alaska and Germantown, Maryland.


OneWeb added that it “remains on track to reach global service by 2022” and is seeing growing demand from telecommunications providers, ISPs, and governments worldwide to offer its low-latency, high-speed connectivity services”.

Bharti Group-backed OneWeb is readying to take on Elon Musk’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper venture in the relatively nascent fast broadband-from-space segment. It will launch satellite broadband services in India too by May 2022.

Earlier this week, Bharti Enterprises chairman Sunil Mittal had said OneWeb would shortly launch its LEO satellites from India using ISRO’s launch vehicles PSLV and GSLV-Mk III.


OneWeb had announced an arrangement through a Letter of Intent with NewSpace India Ltd (NSIL), the commercial arm of ISRO, to use the Indian-built PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) and the heavier GSLV-MkIII (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) as potential platforms to launch OneWeb’s satellites in India from 2022. The non-binding LoI was unveiled at the launch of Indian Space Association (ISpA) in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.