OneWeb, a London-headquartered company, is working to
complete the construction of a constellation of low earth orbit satellites
providing enhanced broadband and other services to countries around the world.
The company is competing in the race to provide fast
Internet for the world's remote areas via satellites along with tech
billionaire Elon Musk and fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos of Amazon.
Images released by Roscosmos showed the Soyuz rocket taking
off against clear blue skies Thursday morning at 0247 GMT (8:17am IST).
Roscosmos said in a statement that the launch and separation
"took place normally".
"We can confirm our sixth separation is complete. Over
half our satellites have now been released!" OneWeb wrote on Twitter.
The UK company plans for its global commercial Internet
service to be operational by next year, supported by some 650 satellites.
🚀 Пуск ракеты-носителя «Союз-2.1б» с разгонным блоком «Фрегат» и 36 космическими аппаратами #OneWeb
— РОСКОСМОС (@roscosmos) March 25, 2021
📅 25 марта 2021 года
📍 Космодром Восточный
Вид с высоты квадрокоптера 🎥 pic.twitter.com/2fvvbfButg
OneWeb's first six satellites were launched by a
Russian-made Soyuz rocket from the space centre in Kourou in French Guiana in
February 2019.
The company launched 68 more from the Baikanour launch site
in Kazakhstan last year and another 36 from the Vostochny cosmodrome in
December.
The Vostochny launch site is one of Russia's most important
space projects, designed to reduce reliance on the Baikonur space centre Moscow
currently rents from Kazakhstan.
Its construction has for years been tainted by multiple
controversies including corruption, and the project has been consistently
behind schedule.
0 comments:
Post a Comment