Thirty-six satellites were launched into orbit Friday aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket, which OneWeb bought from European aerospace firm Arianespace.
These satellites will join another 74 that OneWeb launched into space before declaring bankruptcy in March, and mention problems in securing additional funding as investors tighten their belts in the early days of the Covid pandemic -19. OneWeb’s main financial financier for most of its existence was Softbank, which had been under increasing pressure from its investors to avoid riskier ventures after a series of bad bets for tech companies.
OneWeb halted operations for most of 2020 as it underwent a Chapter 11 restructuring. The British government and India-based Bharti Global became OneWeb’s major shareholders after putting 1,000 millions of dollars to the company during bankruptcy proceedings.
Building a massive constellation of satellites that transmit the Internet is not an easy feat: several companies tried and failed to bring this business model to life in the 1990s, but both went under, throwing in the towel. or they drastically modified their business plan after realizing this plan was much more expensive than previously thought.
But a cohort of companies are trying again and OneWeb’s toughest competition will come from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has already launched about 1,000 satellites, has brought its service to the first beta testers and hopes to launch the its commercial business next year.
The company, which says its constellation will only require 650 satellites, plans to launch its service by the end of 2021 and will focus on providing services to businesses rather than directly to consumers.
