SpaceX said it launched a rocket carrying 40 small satellites for UK government-backed OneWeb to low-Earth orbit (LEO) overnight.
It was the first OneWeb mission for Elon Musk’s rocket company, which also owns its own satellite internet arm, Starlink.
The launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is the first of three SpaceX is carrying out for the UK satellite company.
All forty satellites have successfully separated and now we wait as our team works to confirm contact with all our spacecraft.#OneWebLaunch15 ???? pic.twitter.com/Y3p1HUdhDF
— OneWeb (@OneWeb) December 9, 2022
OneWeb, which will offer broadband via an eventual constellation of 650 satellites, turned to SpaceX to launch its satellites in a March agreement after dropping its Russian partner Roscosmos following the Ukraine invasion.
Taking around 100 days for this batch of satellites to reach their final LEO destinations to begin services, OneWeb said the satellites will expand its constellation into the southern hemisphere while improving the density of coverage across a large part of North America, where it has a distribution agreement with telco AT&T.
