OneWeb has the potential to do a lot of good around the world: UK PM Boris Johnson

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will meet OneWeb chairman Sunil Mittal during his current India visit, even as he said the global satellite operator - co-owned by India's Bharti Group and the UK government - had fixed recent problems caused by Russia's decision to stop the company from launching satellites from Kazakhstan amidst the war in Ukraine.

"We're making a big breakthrough on OneWeb...there was a problem caused by the Russians deciding that they (OneWeb) couldn't launch any more from Kazakhstan...(but) we've fixed it, and OneWeb has the potential to do a lot of good around the world," Johnson told journalists on a plane to Gujarat on Thursday.

He added that he "would be meeting Mittal," who is also chairman of India's Bharti group.


OneWeb is setting up a global constellation of 648-odd LEO satellites to deliver high-speed, low-latency satellite broadband services in rural and remote regions globally, including in India.




Last month, it had inked a similar contract with Elon Musk's SpaceX to resume satellite launches amid geopolitical tensions arising from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. OneWeb recently bagged a crucial GMPCS (global mobile personal communications by satellite services) permit from DoT, paving the way to launch internet from space services in India later this year. But it expects the India launch to get delayed beyond the May 2022 timeline due to challenges brought on by the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.