Russia's space agency Roscosmos plans to deliver all of the Soyuz launch vehicles ordered by UK tech company OneWeb early next year, the director general of Russian space manufacturer TsSKB-Progress, Dmitry Baranov, told Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th August, 2020) Russia's space agency Roscosmos plans to deliver all of the Soyuz launch vehicles ordered by UK tech company OneWeb early next year, the director general of Russian space manufacturer TsSKB-Progress, Dmitry Baranov, told Sputnik.
"The production of the last [rockets] will be at the end of this year and beginning of next. They are practically at the finish," he said.
Baranov said that TsSKB-Progress, a key subsidiary of state space agency Roscosmos, had received all the necessary funds to complete the project.
He added that the next launch under the Roscosmos contract with OneWeb will take place in December 2020.
OneWeb is a US-UK private satellite manufacturing company that planned to launch up to 672 satellites into low Earth orbit with the vision to provide broadband internet access to the entire world's surface. In 2015, the company penned a contract with Roscosmos through European aerospace company Arianespace to carry out 21 launches to deliver all the satellites into space. In late March, OneWeb filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a New York state court.
In March of this year, the UK government and the telecommunications holdings firm Bharti Global Limited agreed to invest up to $500 million each, allowing the company to go through with its project.
