Russian Rocket Successfully Places 34 UK OneWeb Satellites Into Targeted Orbits -Roscosmos

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th February, 2020) The Fregat upper stage of the Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket, launched on Friday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, has successfully placed 34 UK satellites of the OneWeb project into the targeted orbits, Russia's State Space Corporation Roscosmos said.

The carrier rocket with the UK satellites was launched from Baikonur at 00:42 Moscow time (21:42 GMT on Thursday). This was the first Russian space launch carried out this year.

"It has been confirmed that all 34 OneWeb communication satellites have been successfully separated from the Fregat upper stage. They have been placed into targeted orbits!" Roscosmos wrote on its Twitter page.

Roscosmos signed contracts with French company Arianespace and UK's OneWeb in June 2015 for carrying out a total of 21 commercial launches to bring 672 satellites to space atop the Soyuz rockets from Kourou, Baikonur and Vostochny spaceports.

OneWeb plans to create a constellation of satellites that will provide broadband internet access to users around the world fully covering the Earth's surface.