Moscow. September 14th. INTERFAX.RU – The Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle with 34 communication satellites of the British company OneWeb was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome.
Roskosmos is broadcasting live satellite launches to create a satellite Internet network. The rocket was launched at 21:07 Moscow time.
Later, at 21:16, the Fregat upper stage successfully separated from the third stage of the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle with OneWeb communication satellites. In the next four hours, the spacecraft will be separated from the Fregat.
The previous launch took place on August 22 – the Soyuz-2.1b rocket launched a batch of 34 OneWeb communication satellites into orbit, bringing the number of spacecraft in orbit to 288 units.
In July, the British company announced that it plans to complete the deployment of a satellite constellation to provide global coverage by June 2022. According to OneWeb, the low-Earth orbit constellation will consist of 648 satellites.
LEO OneWeb spacecraft are designed to provide terrestrial consumers with high-speed Internet directly via satellite communications. Roskosmos plans to carry out ten launches with such spacecraft in 2021.
