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OneWeb to complete constellation and become service ready in 2023

Sunil Bharti Mittal, CEO OneWeb

Ibadan, 8 November 2022. – OneWeb CEO Sunil Bharti Mittal has announced that the company will be ready for service in the second half of 2023 as it will complete the launch of its constellations by March 2023. Mittal made this announcement at the ongoing Connecting the World from the Skies forum, organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Saudi Arabia Communications, Space & Technology Commission (CST). 

According to the CEO, the company suffered a setback with its satellites scheduled to launch from Russia prior to the conflict in the region. The company has subsequently moved its launches to India and the United States of America. As a result, OneWeb will be launching 40 satellites to add to its constellation in November 2022 through SpaceX, with another batch of satellite launches coming in January 2023 from India. The CEO also disclosed that its services and terminals are all ready to serve One Web’s “high demanding enterprise customers”

Mittal also disclosed two proof of concepts conducted in Saudi Arabia with Aramco and STC, with another due later in November. According to him, these inspire confidence that OneWeb’s technology works and is necessary for the space industry. OneWeb currently has just under 500 satellites in orbit and will look to bring this tally up to 640 by March 2023. The company also projects to have 46 Satellite Network Portals (SNPs) and ground stations globally, with 26 of them to be ready before the end of 2023.

The CEO further remarks that OneWeb would “start a revolution in the space communications industry by allowing each nation, customer, and user, to raise their hands anywhere in the world, however remote they are.”

Connecting the World from the Skies forum is a hybrid forum taking place from 8–10 November 2022, in Riyadh and online, and will discuss extensively airborne and spaceborne networks from space, science, technology, and policy perspectives. The forum will feature representatives from both the public and private sectors, particularly radiocommunications and space industry innovators, researchers, ICT, and technology stakeholders, as well as spectrum policymakers from national regulators and other relevant international bodies.

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