Luxembourg, 26 April 2021. – Arianespace launched 36 OneWeb satellites on a Soyuz rocket, bringing the entire OneWeb constellation to 182 satellites, Arianespace said.
Flight ST31 was the 56th Soyuz mission carried out by Arianespace and its Starsem affiliate; it was the 326thmission in the Arianespace family of launchers, bringing the total number of satellites launched by Arianespace to 868.
Pursuant to an amended launch contract with OneWeb, Arianespace will perform 13 more Soyuz launches through 2021 and 2022, the launch company said. “These launches will enable OneWeb to complete the deployment of its full global constellation of low Earth orbit satellites by the end of 2022.”
The satellite prime contractor is OneWeb Satellites, a joint venture of OneWeb and Airbus Defence and Space. Starsem’s shareholders are Arianespace, ArianeGroup, the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos and the Samara Space Center RKTs-Progress.
