OneWeb, the alternative to Starlink, revives and puts 34 new satellites into orbit

To this day, although we only hear about SpaceX and sStarlink satellite systemThere are many companies that seek to provide the Internet from space, for example Amazon service. But one of the ones with the longest track record, actually before Starlink, is OneWeb. The company put these days 34 new satellites are in orbit to serve satellite internet.

The launch came from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. On board a Russian Soyuz 2.1B missile 34 OneWeb satellites have been launched into space. its target? Low Earth Orbit access to use 450 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.

OneWeb’s idea is to offer a “near-latency” Internet connection. It’s not entirely clear what they mean by this, but Expect download speeds for receiving stations on Earth of up to 50MB/s. It will be lower speeds than Starlink, which already offers speeds of over 100MB/s.

Mission Nine (and bankruptcy in between)

Although the launch was originally scheduled for Thursday, August 19, due to various issues, it has been postponed until Saturday, August 21. The company’s launch rate is also lower than that of SpaceX’s Starlink. it’s about The ninth mission of OneWeb Compared to the dozens already released by Starlink.

The company is now completing the second phase of building a “constellation” of orbiting satellites. They plan to own 6,372 satellites To complete the second phase of the project.

Once you have enough in orbit, you can start offering satellite internet. currently The company has a total of 288 satellites in orbit. You need a total of 600 satellites for global coverage and an additional 48 satellites.

OneWeb originally wanted to own 48,000 satellites in its second phase. What made you reduce this goal nearly seven times? The difficulties the company is facing. March 2020 declared bankruptcy Not being able to afford development costs. Fortunately, after a few months They were saved Thanks to the fact that the UK and an Indian company acquired it.

via | NASA space