OneWeb launch delayed
January 2, 2020
By Chris Forrester
Reports from Russia state that OneWeb’s next batch of satellites, expected to launch at the end of January, has been postponed. The launch will now happen in February according to news agency Sputnik.
The launch has now been postponed three times, from December 19th to January 23rd, from January 23rd to January 30th and again to – about – February 9th. The reports warn that a further postponement could still be imposed.
Sputnik quotes space agency Roscosmos saying that several of this batch of satellites have yet to be delivered to the Baikonur, Kazakhstan launch site. According to Roskosmos subsidiary Glavkosmos there will be 34 satellites in this launch. “The first batch arrived on December 16, but the second one is being late. The planned date [of delivery] is January 19,” the source specified.
Roscosmos signed contracts with French company Arianespace and UK’s OneWeb in June 2015 for carrying out a total of 21 commercial launches to bring 672 satellites to space atop the Soyuz rockets from Kourou, Baikonur and Vostochny spaceports.