A total of seven OneWeb satellite launches are planned for 2022
PARIS, February 3. /tass/. The launch of the Russian Soyuz-ST-B carrier rocket with 34 OneWeb satellites from the Kourou cosmodrome in French Guiana will take place on the evening of February 10. The corresponding information was published on Thursday by the space launch operator Arianespace.
"Scheduled for February 10 at 15:09 local time (21:09 Moscow time), the flight of the Soyuz rocket under the VS27 index will be the first mission of the European space launch operator Arianespace this year," the communique says.
As noted in the statement, after this 13th total launch of OneWeb satellites, their number in orbit will reach 428. During the current mission, the Soyuz-ST-B carrier rocket with the Fregat upper stage is to deliver 34 of the company's spacecraft into a near-polar orbit at an altitude of 450 km. The duration of the mission to deploy a constellation of satellites will be 3 hours and 33 minutes, the separation of satellites will be carried out in nine stages.
Previously, General Director of Glavkosmos JSC (part of Roscosmos) Dmitry Loskutov told TASS that the first launch of British OneWeb communications satellites in 2022 is planned to be carried out in February from the Guiana Space Center (Kourou Cosmodrome). According to the CEO of Glavkosmos, a total of seven OneWeb satellite launches are planned for 2022.
OneWeb low-orbit spacecraft are designed to provide ground-based consumers with high-speed Internet directly via satellite communications. Now the group has 394 devices. All of them were withdrawn by Russian Soyuz launch vehicles.