Oneweb has launched six satellites that will be part of 600 global satellite network.
OneWeb will launch into a 450-500km altitude, which is above the International Space Station. From there, our satellites will climb to an operational orbit of 1,200km.
How will OneWeb operate alongside proposed constellations which seek to operate in the same altitude?
OneWeb has demonstrated its willingness to reach agreements with other operators to ensure orbital safety. We think that constellations of more than 100 satellites should be separated by a minimum of 125km between the center of their orbits. This is necessary to safely and sustainably manage large constellations.
OneWeb will be mostly using Soyuz 2 launches of 36 satellites at a time with one launch per month. There will also be some Ariane launches.
6/6 – all 6 of the satellites have successfully separated from the rocket. They will now deploy their solar panels and begin generating power from the sun, to begin their journey to provide #ConnectivityEverywhere #OneWebLaunch
— OneWeb (@OneWeb) February 27, 2019
2/6 satellites have successfully separated from the rocket. They will soon be followed by the remaining 4. Stay tuned #OneWebLaunch
— OneWeb (@OneWeb) February 27, 2019
SOURCES- Youtube, Twitter, Oneweb
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It will be long time before we can send up enough satellites to create any notable effect on the climate. The Earth has a surface area of ~510 trillion square meters; even if every satellite shaded 10 square meters, and we put up a million of them, well that is ~0.00000196% blockage, if I did my math right. There are proposals to create orbital sunshades to block sunlight; one interesting one would launch a bunch small ones into LEO, and then the satelites would use solar sails to maneuver out to the L1 point & perform station keeping. Still would end up costing like a $trillion or so, assuming fully working BFR/Starship to launch them.
And all these proposed satellite webs are in fairly low orbits, which means any debris with thankfully have enough drag to pull it down in less than a decade or so.
Free information is the enemy of the incredibly wealthy. The first thing the billionaire class will do in a country will be to buy up all the media outlets and start broadcasting garbage 24/7.
The billionaires in the US and Russia know how powerful satellite control is of course.
We’re almost to something like the FEDERAL NEWS NETWORK from Starship Troopers.
Do you want to know more?
With all these satellite webs being launched, we’re going to have to start adjusting our predictions for the solar component of AGW. Casting a lot of shade there. The downside is we might be getting towards a critical mass of unstoppable collisions, like in the movie Gravity.
Free information is always a threat to totatalitarian states be North Korea or Russia.
Maybe the checker happened to be sober this time..
Not ironic, but pretty congruent with their quasi-official position of abusing freedom of information, hacking others, spreading misinformation and polluting the communication channels.
They simply don’t want this made to them.
We’ll see soon.
They ought to start launching some birds before the end of the year, in order to fulfill their FCC commitments and keep their spectrum allocations.
That means they will be most likely using F9.
Hope SpaceX is getting their act together on Starlink…otherwise these guys will get the business. Starlink is crucial to SpaceX funding the BFR, so I kinda want them to succeed vis a vis OneWeb.
Well, that helps with their spectrum reservations, provided they can complete deployment.
Looks like they double checked that they filled the third stage to a full tank this time, unlike the last Soyuz launch…
How ironic Russia is launching OneWeb to provide world wide internet access but will block the satellite signal over Russia to deprive its citizens of free internet. Putin considers free information a mortal threat to its regime.