OneWeb turns to SpaceX for help after Russia refused to launch company’s satellites

OneWeb turns to SpaceX for help after Russia refused to launch company’s satellites
OneWeb turns to SpaceX for help after Russia refused to launch company’s satellites
A model of a OneWeb satellite on display | Photo by Hugh Hastings/Getty Images

Internet-from-space provider OneWeb says it will resume launching its satellites on the rockets of its competitor SpaceX, with the first launch expected sometime this year. The deal was struck after OneWeb’s original launch provider, Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos, refused to continue launching the company’s satellites unless OneWeb cowed to a list of significant demands.

The British company OneWeb is currently building out a mega-constellation of 648 satellites in low Earth orbit to provide broadband Internet coverage to customers all over the planet. It’s similar to SpaceX’s Starlink initiative, which aims to launch tens of thousands of satellites to also provide global broadband Internet coverage.

So far, OneWeb has…

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