The Soyuz 2 rocket launches 36 OneWeb satellites on March 25, 2020 from the Vostochny spaceport, Russia.
Roscosmos
The corporate Internet space race has taken a geopolitical turn.
Russia’s Roscosmos space agency refuses to launch the next batch of 36 OneWeb satellites on Friday unless the company meets the requirements of the state agency. Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin stressed that the ultimatum was in response to UK sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
Roscosmos said in a statement that the Soyuz rocket would be removed from the launch site of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, unless OneWeb meets two requirements:
- The UK government is selling its stake in the company.
- OneWeb guarantees that the satellites will not be used for military purposes.
OneWeb and Arianespace, the European missile maker that operates Soyuz missiles supplied by Roscosmos, did not respond immediately to CNBC’s comments.
A stack of 36 OneWeb satellites is being prepared before its launch on March 25, 2020.
Arianespace
The company has launched 428 satellites into low Earth orbit with Soyuz rockets. OneWeb plans to control a constellation of 650 satellites to provide global Internet coverage from space.
OneWeb was saved from bankruptcy in 2020 as the UK government and Indian telecommunications conglomerate Bharti Global took a stake in the company to fund the company’s network.
Space companies are vying to build next-generation satellite Internet networks, mostly in low Earth orbit, using hundreds or thousands of satellites. SpaceX’s OneWeb and Starlink are the most mature versions of these concepts. Everyone has started to provide services to customers.
But companies’ approaches are very different.
OneWeb’s business, for example, depends on multinational collaboration. OneWeb has a variety of stakeholders around the world, with investors including the UK government, Bharti Global, Japanese investment giant SoftBank, European communications firm Eutelsat and South Korean conglomerate Hanwha systems.
The company’s path to building its network is also global: OneWeb satellites are being manufactured in Florida through a joint venture with European aerospace giant Airbus. Its launches are carried out through the Arianespace of Russian missiles. States require regulatory approval in order for a company to provide a service.
In contrast, SpaceX is a private, highly vertical American company. Elon Musk’s company builds and launches Starlink satellites on its own. SpaceX provides Starlink in more than two dozen countries.
The company recently activated the service in Ukraine in response to requests from the government. SpaceX has also sent Starlink terminals to Ukraine, with antennas helping to connect the country to the Internet amid the Russian invasion.