March 18, 2020
Categories: Russia

This morning, on March 18, 2020, the “Soyuz-2.1b” booster rocket with the Fregat upper stage and a new batch of OneWeb communications satellites were rolled out from the Assembly and Testing building and installed at the launch pad of platform № 31 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

After the installation of the rocket in the launcher and verticalization, service masts were reduced to it.

Then, the joint staff of the enterprises of Roscosmos State Corporation began to carry out operations according to the schedule of the first launch day: autonomous tests of the systems and units of the payload, launch vehicle and launch complex are carried out.

The launch is scheduled for March 21, 2020.

The separation of the upper stage from the third stage will take place 562.8 seconds after the start.

Over the next 3.5 hours, in accordance with the flight diagram, the spacecraft will be separated from the upper stage in turn.

OneWeb low-orbit spacecraft are designed to provide high-speed Internet directly via satellite.

In total, the company intends to deploy about 600 satellites in low Earth orbit and begin their commercial use in 2020.

The first six OneWeb satellites were launched from the Guiana Space Center using the “Soyuz-ST-B” launch vehicle on February 28, 2019.

The second batch of 34 satellites was launched on February 7, 2020 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

More from this category:
April 1, 2019

Today, on April 1, the “Soyuz-2.1a” rocket with a “Progress MS-11” cargo spaceship was rolled out from the Assembly and Testing Building and installed at…

full story
June 8, 2018

The “Soyuz MS-09” spacecraft on June 8, 2018 successfully docked to the docking site of the research module “Rassvet” of the Russian segment of the…

full story
May 16, 2014

On May 16,2014 at 01.42, Moscow time Proton-M booster with Briz-M upper stage and Express-AM4R satellite was launched from Baikonur spaceport. The satellite wasn’t orbited…

full story
September 21, 2015

Roscosmos and European Space Agency recommend to shift the launch of Russian-European Exomars station to be performed from Baikonur spaceport from January 2016 to March…

full story
June 23, 2019

This week, the “Typical Flying Day” training was performed by the main and backup crews (main crew – Roskosmos cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, ESA astronaut Luca…

full story
December 25, 2014

On December 25, 2014 at 06.01, Moscow timeSoyuz-2.1b booster with telecommunication space device was successfully launched from #43 launchpad of Plesetsk State Test Spaceport. The…

full story
April 22, 2019

On April 19 the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center was visited by the delegation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, headed by Dr. Salah Khalid K….

full story
September 12, 2014

Today, on September 12, Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre charters brought main and back-up crew of Soyuz TMA-14M manned spacecraft to Baikonur spaceport.  Roscosmos, Yuzny space…

full story