MOSCOW, December 18 (Reuters) – OneWeb, the British government-salvaged satellite company and the Barti Group of India, began flights on Friday in a bid to provide global broadband coverage while and 36 of its satellites exploded into orbit from Russia ‘s Far East.
The launch by Arianespace and its affiliate Starsem was the first fully commercial flight from Russia’s new Vostochny cosmodrome, Russia’s Roscosmos space corporation said.
“The Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle along with the Fregat upgrade and 36 @OneWeb communications satellites was lifted from the #Vostochny cosmodrome,” he tweeted.
The launch will expand the number of in-orbit satellites at OneWeb to 110, part of a 648 low-earth orbit fleet designed to establish a high-speed, low-latency global connection, the satellite operator said.
The announcement should be on track to offer commercial services in Britain, Alaska, Northern Europe, Greenland, Iceland, the Arctic Oceans and Canada by 2021, a statement said. before its launch.
OneWeb said last month that it came out of a Chapter 11 breach defense with $ 1 billion in equity investment from a coalition of the UK government and India’s Bharti Enterprises, the company’s new owners. is based in the UK.
OneWeb, founded in 2014 by entrepreneur Greg Wyler, planned to launch 650 satellites into low-earth orbit to provide universal internet but was locked into an ongoing struggle to make money built. (Reporting by Tom Balmforth; edited by Mark Potter)