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Next launch of UK OneWeb satellites from Baikonur spaceport slated for late December

It was also reported that most of launches next year would also be carried out from the Baikonur Cosmodrome

BAIKONUR COSMODROME /Kazakhstan/, November 24. /TASS/. The next launch of British OneWeb communications satellites from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan is expected at the end of the year, Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin said on Wednesday.

"Complex and intense work awaits us in December: a commercial crew launch on December 8 to be followed by the launch of satellites under the OneWeb program at the end of the month and the launch of a Proton [carrier rocket] with communications satellites," the Roscosmos chief said at the Baikonur spaceport.

A source in the space industry earlier told TASS that the launch of OneWeb satellites was targeted for December 27 and most of launches next year would also be carried out from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Roscosmos Chief Rogozin said that the launch of the Ekspress-AMU3 and Ekspress-AMU7 telecoms satellites atop a Proton-M carrier rocket had been rescheduled from December 6 for December 12 over the need to carry out some work on the Briz-M booster. Roscosmos later specified that specialists of the Khrunichev Space Center had eliminated a fault found earlier on the Briz-M.