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All 36 OneWeb put into designated orbit — Roscosmos

After completing its mission, the Fregat upper stage will be deorbited and sunk in a non-navigational area of the Pacific Ocean

© Sergei Savostyanov/TASS

MOSCOW, May 29. /TASS/. The 36 OneWeb satellites, launched atop the Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket on Friday, have been successfully deployed into the designated orbit, Russia’s state-run space corporation Roscosmos said in a statement on Saturday.

"All satellites have been put into designated orbits according to plan, and handed over under the customer’s control," Roscosmos said.

After completing its mission, the Fregat upper stage will be deorbited and sunk in a non-navigational area of the Pacific Ocean.

The Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket was launched from the Vostochny space center in Russia’s Far Eastern Amur region at 20:38 Moscow time on Friday. The satellites separated in several stages, with the entire process taking 3 hours and 51 minutes.

This was the seventh launch of OneWeb satellites and the fourth purely commercial launch from Vostochny. With these satellites in orbit, the OneWeb constellation will reach 218.

The launch was initially scheduled for May 27 but was postponed to a later date due to minor problems detected by automatic sensors. Later, Arianespace, the launch operator, said the carrier rocket’s electrical equipment needed to be replaced before the launch.

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