Advanced Television

“Microhole” setback for OneWeb

January 31, 2019

By Chris Forrester

OneWeb founder has been justifiably Tweeting about his planned launch of the first batch of 6 Low-Earth orbiting (LEO) satellites.

However, there may be an unexpected glitch, with experts from Russia’s Soyuz rocket business who are at the Arianespace launch site in Kourou, French Guiana.

The Russian team are responsible for the ‘Fregat’ upper stage of the Soyuz rocket, and local reports say that there may be a problem.

Evidently there is a “microhole” in a pipe on the upper stage.

Russian news agency TASS is saying that specialists from the Lavochkin Research and Production Association (Fregat’s manufacturing company] are dealing with this problem, and by the end of the week they should specify the types of the works needed for eliminating it,” the TASS source says.

The launch was scheduled for February 19th, but the indications are that this could now slip into March.

Categories: Articles, Satellite