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.
