A successful launch of 36 OneWeb satellites aboard the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle with the Fregat upper stage was executed on Thursday, July 1, from the Russian cosmodrome Vostochny. The launch of the spacecraft was carried out under the contracts of Glavkosmos (a subsidiary of Roscosmos) by the European launch services provider Arianespace (operates the launch of OneWeb spacecraft with the use of the Soyuz launch vehicle) and the company Starsem.

This launch became the fifth fully commercial launch of spacecraft from Vostochny. It was executed by the joint team, which combined the specialists of Roscosmos enterprises – Progress Space Rocket Center, Lavochkin Association, TsENKI, Russian Space Systems, Glavkosmos and those of the foreign customers.

The separation of the Fregat upper stage from the third stage was nominal. During three and a half hours in accordance with the flight sequence, the spacecraft were separated from the upper stage nine times and injected into target orbits.

The foreign customers of Glavkosmos have confirmed that the company has fully complied with its contractual obligations. The customer has acquired the signal from all the satellites.

OneWeb low Earth orbit satellites are designed to provide consumers on the ground with high-speed Internet. Today’s launch brought the number of OneWeb satellites in orbit to 254 and the company is planning to launch hundreds more.