PARIS, February 26. /TASS/. Russia’s Soyuz-ST-B carrier rocket has completed all necessary checks and has been cleared for the February 27 launch to put first OneWeb satellites into orbit, Arianespace CEO Stephane Israel said in a Twitter post on Tuesday.
"Soyuz is approved for flight! Today’s launch readiness review cleared the medium-lift workhorse for tomorrow’s liftoff with the first six satellites in OneWeb’s constellation," he said.
The launch is scheduled to take place at 18:37 local time (February 28, 00:37 Moscow time), from the Kourou Spaceport in French Guiana.
The blastoff, initially scheduled for February 19, was postponed until February 26 following the discovery of a micro-crack in the Fregat booster, which was fixed by Roscosmos engineers on site.
However, OneWeb founder and executive chairman Greg Wyler announced shortly after that the launch would be put off for at least one day to review data about the recent Soyuz-2.1b launch from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, during which non-nominal third-stage behavior was detected. Despite the glitches, the mission to put Egypt’s EgyptSat-A satellite into orbit was successful.