SpaceX launches final batch of first-generation OneWeb satellites on Vandenberg’s Falcon 9 rocket – Spaceflight Now

SpaceX is preparing for the 100th orbital launch of its Falcon family of rockets this year. This first milestone is achieved by OneWeb launching the final batch of its first generation internet satellites.

The mission, called OneWeb Launch #20, is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Saturday, October 19, at 10:13 p.m. PDT (1:13 a.m. EDT, 0513 UTC on Sunday, October 20).

Spaceflight Now’s live broadcast begins approximately 30 minutes before launch.

The Falcon 9 first stage booster for this mission, tail number B1082 in the SpaceX fleet, will launch for the seventh time. It previously supported USSF-62 and five Starlink missions.

A little less than eight minutes after takeoff, B1082 will return to Vandenberg to touch down in Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4). If successful, this would be the 21st booster landing on LZ-4 and the 77th land landing for SpaceX to date.

OneWeb Gen. 1 finals

The path to completing the first generation of OneWeb’s satellite Internet constellation was anything but straightforward until the end. OneWeb had to turn to multiple launch providers to complete its constellation of 634 satellites with launch 19 on May 20, 2023.

The original plan for the Gen. 1 constellation was to have 648 satellites in orbit. With the 20 satellites on board Launch #20, this threshold is significantly exceeded.

The first batch of six satellites was launched on February 27, 2019 on a Soyuz rocket that took off from French Guiana. The company hoped to begin monthly launches starting in January 2020, but launch No. 2 did not occur until February 2020, when 34 satellites launched on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

While the third launch occurred about a month later from Baikonur, the fourth launch from Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome was delayed until December 2020 due to OneWeb’s bankruptcy issues and subsequent takeover by Bharti Global, an Indian conglomerate, and the British government.

The fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth launches took place in Vostochny on March 25, April 25, May 27 and July 1. Launch #9 returned to Baikonur on August 22, 2021, adding an additional 34 satellites, for a total of 288 satellites in orbit at that time.

Start No. 10 departed from Baikonur on September 14, 2021, Vostochny for start No. 11 on October 14, 2021, back to Baikonur for start No. 12 on December 27, 2021 and then back to French Guiana for start No. 13 on February 10, 2022.

However, OneWeb encountered a major hurdle on the way to the planned Launch #14 mission. Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, OneWeb announced the cessation of relations with Roscosmos just days before its planned launch in March 2022. The satellites for this mission are still located in Russia today.

“OneWeb’s board of directors voted to suspend all launches from Baikonur,” OneWeb said in a brief statement at the time. The company was not happy about losing its launch provider, as it had a contract with Arianespace to fly six more Soyuz rockets on board to complete its constellation.

Later in March, OneWeb announced launch agreements with SpaceX and the Indian Space Research Organization to launch its remaining satellites using three Falcon 9 rockets and two Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM3) rockets.

These Falcon 9 launches occurred on December 8, 2022, January 10, 2023, and March 9, 2023 (launch #15, #16, and #17) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, close to the satellites are manufactured at the Airbus OneWeb Satellites facility on Merritt Island.

ISRO completed launches No. 14 and 18 on October 22, 2022 and March 25, 2023 from Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota, India.

OneWeb then announced in May 2023 that it planned to launch an additional 16 satellites aboard Mission Launch #19 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, including a demonstration satellite for its Gen. 2 fleet called “JoeySat.”

“Developed by the European Space Agency and the UKSA Sunrise Partnership program, JoeySat features an innovative payload design that will demonstrate digital regenerative processing, electronically steered multi-beam arrays, and digital beamforming and beam hopping technologies,” OneWeb wrote at that time. “These capabilities planned for OneWeb’s Gen 2 constellation will provide customers with increased flexibility and capacity, optimizing resources to meet real-time increasing commercial demand or enable rapid responses to emergencies such as natural disasters.”

Since that launch, OneWeb has partnered with Eutelsat to form the Eutelsat Group, combining the capabilities of the company’s low-Earth and geostationary satellites.