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All 36 OneWeb satellites launched from Vostochny spaceport delivered into orbit

OneWeb satellites were launched from the Vostochny spaceport for the first time in December 2020

Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat booster and 36 OneWeb satellites Yuri Smityuk/TASS

Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat booster and 36 OneWeb satellites

© Yuri Smityuk/TASS

MOSCOW, October 14. /TASS/. All of 36 British OneWeb communications satellites launched from the Vostochny spaceport in the Russian Far East have been delivered into orbit, Russia’s federal space agency Roscosmos said in a statement on Thursday.

"All of 36 OneWeb satellites successfully separated from the Russian Fregat booster and were delivered into the designated orbits," Roscosmos tweeted.

Nine clusters of the communications satellites sequentially separated from the booster in accordance with the flight chart worked out by specialists of the Lavochkin Research and Production Association. The satellites were put into a circular orbit at an altitude of 450 km above the Earth’s surface. The satellites will switch to an orbit at an altitude of 1,200 km using their own thrusters, the Roscosmos press office specified.

"After completing the procedure of sequentially orbiting the satellites, the Fregat booster will be removed from the Earth’s orbit and its non-combustible elements will be sunk in the Pacific Ocean, Roscosmos said.

All the satellites have been placed under the customer’s control, it added.

A Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat booster and 36 British OneWeb communications satellites blasted off from the Vostochny spaceport in the Russian Far East at 12:40 p.m. Moscow time on October 14. The satellites separated from the booster in several stages. The launch will boost the OneWeb orbital constellation to 358 satellites.

The first six OneWeb satellites were orbited by a Soyuz-ST carrier rocket from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana on February 28, 2019. Another 34 satellites were delivered into outer space on February 7, 2020 and the same amount on March 21 that year from the Baikonur spaceport.

OneWeb satellites were launched from the Vostochny spaceport for the first time in December 2020. A total of 36 space vehicles were put into orbit. After that, OneWeb satellites were launched on March 25, April 26, May 28 and July 1, 2021 from the Vostochny spaceport and on August 22 and September 14 this year from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

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