SpaceX despatched a set of web satellites to orbit for an additional firm early Sunday morning (Oct. 20).
SpaceX launched the final batch of Eutelsat OneWeb’s V1 satellites from California’s Vandenberg Area Power Base atop a Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday at 1:13 a.m. EDT (0513 GMT; 10:13 p.m. on Oct. 19 native California time).
The Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Earth as deliberate, touching down at Vandenberg’s Touchdown Zone 4 about eight minutes after lifting off. It was the seventh launch and touchdown for this specific booster, in keeping with a SpaceX mission description.
The Falcon 9’s higher stage continued hauling the 20 satellites to low Earth orbit. It’s going to deploy them over a 20-minute span, beginning 59 minutes after liftoff, if all goes to plan.
Associated: SpaceX launches 40 OneWeb web satellites to orbit, lands rocket
Eutelsat OneWeb’s most up-to-date launch with SpaceX, on Could 20, 2023, introduced the corporate’s constellation to 634 satellites. On the time, Eutelsat OneWeb mentioned the brand new batch of 16 satellites could be sufficient to take their companies world.
“OneWeb is on observe to ship world protection this 12 months and is already within the strategy of scaling companies for purchasers world wide,” firm officers stated at the time. (The corporate was then often known as OneWeb; the merger with Eutelsat occurred in September 2023.)
“With the addition of the satellites deployed from this launch, OneWeb will improve the resiliency and redundancy within the constellation because it expands companies to its rising base of enterprise and authorities prospects.”
Earlier to that effort, SpaceX despatched three units of OneWeb satellites aloft in units of 40 spacecraft every.
SpaceX’s settlement to launch Eutelsat OneWeb satellites dates to March 2022, after the latter firm pivoted from an settlement to make use of Russian-built Soyuz rockets via the French firm Arianespace.
Shortly after Russia’s unsanctioned invasion of Ukraine, Russian federal area company Roscosmos mentioned it might not launch 36 OneWeb satellites then mounted on a Soyuz rocket until the corporate met two circumstances.
These circumstances had been that the spacecraft wouldn’t be used for navy functions, and the UK would divest itself from the corporate’s traders. OneWeb didn’t accede and the Soyuz was rolled off the launch pad on the Roscosmos-operated Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, replete with the satellites.
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