The story of the next launch of satellites of the British company OneWeb, which deploys a constellation in orbit similar to the more well-known SpaceX Starlink to provide satellite access to the Network, ended in nothing: yesterday the OneWeb board of directors voted to suspend all planned launches of its satellites from the Baikonur cosmodrome, and today the head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin instructed to stop all launches of Russian missiles in the interests of OneWeb.
Stop preparations for the launch, remove the rocket from the launch complex and return it to the technical complex. Place the spacecraft in the assembly and test complex for conservation. It is in the interests of OneWeb to stop all launches from all Russian launch complexes in Kourou, at Baikonur and the Vostochny cosmodrome.
Dmitry Rogozin
Recall that OneWeb uses Russian Soyuz rockets to launch its satellites into orbit. The launch of the next batch was planned for the night of March 4-5, however, Roscosmos attended to obtaining guarantees for the non-military use of the system. Although previous launches did not require such guarantees, the situation has now changed. On March 2, Dmitry Rogozin wrote on Twitter: “OK. I give you two days to think. There will be no guarantees of non-military use of the system – there will be no system” to the message that the UK government is not going to sell its stake in OneWeb. Roscosmos spoke about the withdrawal of the UK government from OneWeb shareholders as a condition for the launch of its satellites due to “Britain’s hostile stance towards Russia“.
EVERYTHING UK GOVERNMENT IS NOT SELLING ITS SHARE IN ONEWEB, CONTACTS OTHER SHAREHOLDERS TO DISCUSS STEPS – BUSINESS MINISTER Ok. I give you two days to think. There will be no guarantees of non-military use of the system – there will be no system.
— ROGOZIN (@Rogozin) March 2, 2022
Yesterday, March 3, the OneWeb Board of Directors voted to suspend all planned launches of its satellites from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, as reported on Twitter. Roskosmos said that the refusal to launch will not lead to economic damage, since the creation of the rocket and upper stages has already been paid for. And 36 satellites that were supposed to go into orbit will be placed in Baikonur for storage until the situation is resolved. And now this story has come to an end: there will be no launches of OneWeb satellites with the help of Russian rockets in the near future.
Recall that the last launch of OneWeb satellites took place on February 10. Then all 34 vehicles were successfully launched into orbit.
Source: ixbt
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