SpaceX launched 40 satellites for competitor OneWeb

CTOnews.com, December 9 (Xinhua) since Russia was sanctioned, the British OneWeb has stopped using Russian Soyuz 2.1b rockets to launch its satellites, while India and SpaceX have obtained the list with relatively low bids.

At 5:27 local time on Thursday, Falcon 9 launched 40 OneWeb satellites from Cape Canaveral 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and put it into low-Earth orbit a few minutes later, before the rocket stage completed its in-situ landing and recovery on the launch pad. The mission was a complete success.

CTOnews.com learned that the OneWeb first established a partnership with SpaceX and that Musk had launched a space-based constellation Internet satellite for a competitor for the first time.

Oneweb, a British space Internet company, currently has the second largest satellite constellation in the world, with more than 450 satellites in orbit (only 648 planned and 80% completed), second only to Starlink (tens of thousands planned).

According to the SpaceX mission description, this mission is SpaceX's 145th successful rocket recovery and the fourth launch and landing of the booster. The booster previously launched a SpaceX Dragon cargo mission to the International Space Station for NASA in December 2021, and Eutelsat's Hotbird 13F spacecraft and a number of Starlink Internet satellites in October last year.