The Falcon 9 rocket delivered 40 OneWeb communications satellites into low Earth orbit. This was announced on Thursday, December 8, by representatives of the company SpaceX, which developed the carrier.
The rocket launch took place on the same day at 17:27 (at 01:27 on Friday Moscow time). Falcon 9 launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida (USA). Approximately 10 minutes later, the first reusable launch vehicle returned to earth.
After the spacecraft entered a near-Earth orbit at a height of 600 km, the satellites left the rocket and continued their ascent with the help of their ion engines. The OneWeb deployment point is located at an altitude of 1200 km: there is an orbital constellation of 462 of the same devices.
It is noted that this is the first delivery of OneWeb satellites into orbit using SpaceX technologies, and in addition, the most voluminous. Thanks to devices using mobile satellite technology, customers get access to broadband Internet. It is expected that the replenishment of the OneWeb orbital constellation will expand coverage of the United States, Europe, as well as most of the Middle East and Asia.
Earlier, on October 23, a batch of 36 OneWeb copies was launched into orbit from the Indian LVM3 rocket. The launch was made from the launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Center. Previously, the satellite constellation was replenished with the help of Russian Soyuz missiles.
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