Loss of Russia’s Rocket Launch Business Is SpaceX’s Gain


British satellite internet company OneWeb, which canceled rocket launches with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, is turning to SpaceX to send broadband satellites into space.

The alliance, announced by OneWeb on Monday, is unusual because SpaceX is currently OneWeb’s primary competitor in the market for high-speed internet beaming from orbit to users on the ground. However, a tangled dispute with Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, the company’s former launch provider, prompted OneWeb to work with SpaceX. The movement is also Increasing isolation of Russia’s space industry From partners in the West after the start of Moscow’s war with its smaller neighbor.

Neil Masterson, CEO of OneWeb, said in a statement that the new agreement with SpaceX will allow OneWeb to finish building the constellation of 648 satellites in orbit and beam up the internet under a new timeline.

“We thank SpaceX for their support, which reflects our shared vision of the potential for unlimited space,” he said.

OneWeb did not say how many launches it has purchased from SpaceX, which rocket the company will use, or when it now plans to complete the satellite constellation. Costing approximately $62 million per launch, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is its most active launch vehicle. Ruth Pritchard-Kelly, OneWeb’s senior advisor on regulatory matters, said in an interview that OneWeb is also in talks with other launch providers in addition to its agreement with SpaceX.

The earliest SpaceX launch carrying OneWeb satellites “would be this summer, but we don’t have a date,” Ms Pritchard-Kelly said.

OneWeb’s internet business is active in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, but the company will no longer meet its goal of providing full global service in August 2022. SpaceX’s rival internet constellation Starlink altitude, which relies on thousands of satellites at a slower speed, is already available as a pilot for some consumers and has been shipped to Ukraine in recent weeks.

OneWeb consists of 428 satellites, 66 percent of the constellation design. Orbit since 2019, using Soyuz every timeThe horse rocket that has been active since Russia’s Cold War space race days.

In February, three days before OneWeb’s planned satellite launch on a Russian Soyuz rocket from a Russian spaceport in Kazakhstan, Dmitry Rogozin, managing director of Roscosmos, requested that OneWeb disconnect. The British government invested $500 million in the company in 2020 to help it recover from bankruptcy. Mr. Rogozin’s ultimatum followed Western sanctions against Russia for the invasion.

Instead, OneWeb canceled all six of its planned Soyuz launches, abandoning its goal of completing the satellite constellation by August. Neither the UK nor any European Union country has a rocket capable of sending satellites into orbit. A OneWeb executive at the time said the company was considering rockets for launches in the United States, India and Japan.

OneWeb officials said they did not know the fate of 36 satellites placed on the Soyuz rocket, whose mission was canceled last month. “They were launched from afar,” Ms Pritchard-Kelly said of the satellites, referring to the shell that protects a rocket’s payload, “and I personally don’t know if they’re still in Kazakhstan.”

Ms Pritchard-Kelly said OneWeb is in talks with French rocket company Arianespace, which brokers Soyuz launches, to acquire the satellites and provide a potential payback for axed Soyuz missions.

“Nothing was destroyed; All we do is waste time,” he said.

Rogozin, head of Russia’s space agency, He said on Twitter on Monday He promised OneWeb was “doomed”, echoing previous claims that not launching Soyuz would drive the company back into bankruptcy. He suggested SpaceX would not be able to successfully dock OneWeb’s satellites, but offered no explanation as to why it lacked that capability.





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