The launch will take place if Russia receives guarantees of non-use of satellites for military purposes by Friday evening. In addition, the space agency demanded that the UK withdraw from the shareholders of OneWeb.
Roscosmos will cancel the launch of OneWeb Corporation satellites, scheduled for March 5 from Baikonur, if Moscow does not receive guarantees that the devices are not planned to be used for military purposes by 21:30 on Friday — that is, before the meeting of the commission authorizing the launch. This was stated by the head of the space department Dmitry Rogozin. He also demanded that the UK government withdraw from the company's shareholders.
"We are making a request to our French colleagues from Arianspace, as well as OneWeb, demanding that they provide us with exhaustive legally binding guarantees within two days that OneWeb will not use its satellites for military purposes. <...> If we do not receive this kind of confirmation from our partners by 21:30 on March 4, the rocket will be removed from the launch and the satellites will be sent to the assembly and test building. <...> We also believe that the real guarantee that OneWeb will work exclusively for civilian purposes is the withdrawal of the British government from the shareholders. If this does not happen, we will not accept any guarantees," he said on the Rossiya-24 TV channel.
Rogozin explained his concerns by the fact that back in November 2021, Russia received information about OneWeb's negotiations with a Pentagon contractor (the US Department of Defense). "We have very serious questions for our customer," Rogozin stressed.
If the launch does not take place on March 5, due to force majeure caused by the "aggressive policy of the West and sanctions," the corporation's money will not be returned. "The contract has been paid in full. We received all the money from him for the manufacture of launch vehicles, upper stages and for the necessary launch services," the head of Roscosmos added.
The press service of the state corporation clarified that all 36 satellites will remain on Baikonur until the situation is resolved. Because, in addition to the Russian missile " Soyuz " with the Fregat upper stage, OneWeb currently has no other options for launching vehicles into space, "without replenishing the grouping, the full functioning of the system is impossible."
As for Russia, "the refusal to launch will not cause serious economic damage to the activities of Roscosmos and its subsidiaries."
Russia signed a contract with Arianspace involving 21 launches of more than 670 British OneWeb spacecraft from the Baikonur, Vostochny and Kourou cosmodromes in the summer of 2015. The cost of the agreement is over a billion dollars. In the spring of 2021, the parties held negotiations on a new contract so that Roscosmos would help with the launch of the second generation of satellites.
Currently there are 428 spacecraft in orbit, their task is to provide broadband Internet access through mobile satellite communication technologies for users around the world by 2027. How exactly they can be used for military purposes is not specified.
So far, OneWeb has not refused agreements with the Russian department. However, in recent days, Western countries have imposed many sanctions against Russia because of the military operation in Ukraine. Some touched on the space industry: for example, the [...] future of the Russian-European mission ExoMars-2022 was in question.
Against the background of these events, Roscosmos decided to suspend cooperation with the European Space Agency on launches from the Kourou cosmodrome in French Guiana and withdraw its specialists from there. Russia also refused to cooperate with NASA on the automatic interplanetary mission "Venus-D", calling it inappropriate.
