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Over 30 OneWeb satellites delivered to Kourou spaceport for launch atop Soyuz rocket

The next step is to prepare the spacecraft at the technical compound of the European spaceport

MOSCOW, January 17. /TASS/. Over 30 British OneWeb communications satellites were delivered to the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana for launch atop a Russian Soyuz-ST-B carrier rocket in February, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos announced on Monday.

"A new batch of OneWeb spacecraft was delivered to the Guiana Space Center as part of Mission 34. The next phase of work is to prepare the spacecraft at the technical compound of the European spaceport, the statement says.

On January 15, specialists of the Lavochkin Research and Production Association and the Center for Ground-Based Space Infrastructure Facilities Operation (both integrated into Roscosmos) began filling the Fregat upper stage propulsion systems with compressed gases and fuel components, it said.

"The Soyuz-ST-B rocket with the Fregat upper stage and 34 OneWeb spacecraft is scheduled to launch on February 10, 2022," Roscosmos specified.

CEO of the commercial launch operator Glavkosmos (part of Roscosmos) Dmitry Loskutov earlier told TASS that seven launches of British OneWeb communications satellites were scheduled for 2022. The first launch was scheduled to take place from the Guiana space center (the Kourou cosmodrome) in February, he specified.

British OneWeb low-orbit satellites are designed to create a space-based communications system to provide high-speed Internet access in any locality worldwide. Currently, the OneWeb orbital cluster comprises 394 satellites. All of them were orbited by Russian Soyuz carrier rockets.