OneWeb New Batch of Satellites Launched by SpaceX

On October 20, 2024, SpaceX launched the twentieth OneWeb mission, placing twenty satellites into polar orbit.

The Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket lifted off at 05:13 UTC. After 2 minutes of flight, the second stage separated, igniting its Merlin vacuum engine and continuing on the planned trajectory to Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

The booster used for this mission is B1082, a veteran of launches from the Vandenberg base which previously flew six times from the same launch pad. It landed on Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) 8 minutes after lift-off, marking its seventh successful landing at the same spot.

After one hour of flight, the second stage with its payload reached the planned orbit, starting the deployment of the twenty satellites, two at a time. The mission ended with the release of the last couple of spacecraft at 06:25 UTC.

SpaceX and OneWeb: competitors and partners

Thanks to a LEO constellation of around 6,500 satellites, Starlink is one of the major players in the satellite connectivity market, with over 2 million private and public customers in forty countries. This is the same market as OneWeb, which holds the second-biggest constellation of LEO satellites, made up of 640 spacecraft.

The launch plan was initially built without considering SpaceX as a launch company, due to its role as a competitor in OneWeb’s main market. From February 2019 to February 2022, the company delivered the first thirteen batches of satellites on top of Soyuz rockets in LEO.

However, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and its political and economic consequences, the Soyuz launcher became suddenly unusable for the British company. To complete its constellation, OneWeb had to change its mind about contracting SpaceX, as first confirmed by Space Voyaging, in addition to ISRO for the next missions. ISRO launched missions 14 and 18, while SpaceX launched missions 15, 16, 17, and 19.

A former OneWeb employee claimed in a Wall Street Journal article that the agreement with SpaceX involves sharing spectrum rights with the Starink constellation. A OneWeb spokesperson, however, stated that spectrum deals are not related to the launch agreement and were beneficial to both parties.

Mission 20, the first satellite constellation is complete

Mission 20 comes more than a year after the last launch, Mission 19 of May 2023, which had almost completed the constellation (634 out of the planned 648) and had delivered the first test satellite, JoeySat, of its next generation of spacecraft.

The company added this extra batch of Gen1 satellites to act as an orbital backup for failed spacecraft in the constellation. Four of them will already be used as replacements for satellites that were declared failed in June 2023.

The constellation has now reached the planned number of spacecraft for the full operation. In the future, OneWeb could expand it to reach 900 satellites.