Home / Blogs

SpaceX to Launch Satellites for Competitor OneWeb

Covering the US flag on a Russian rocket (image source)

On March 2, Russia covered the US flag on the Roscosmos Space Agency rocket that was scheduled to launch 36 OneWeb broadband satellites on March 5. The Russians made two obviously untenable demands—that OneWeb guarantee that the satellites would not be used for military purposes and the United Kingdom government remove its investment in the company. OneWeb declined, and the satellites were removed from the rocket. On March 17, speaking at a USAID forum, Bala Balamurali, OneWeb’s Director for Southeast Asia & the Pacific, said the plan to offer service later this year had slipped to early next year due to the Ukraine-Russia conflict. The schedule delay and loss of expensive satellites and payment for this and future launches was a major setback for OneWeb, and they began searching for a new launch provider.

The plaques on the “wall of patents” at Tesla were replaced by a mural (image source)

They found one—broadband competitor SpaceX. Coming to the rescue of a competitor might seem like bad business, but Elon Musk may be the richest person in the world (with the possible exception of Putin) because he is motivated by more than profit. Musk does not see the success of the Starlink broadband business as an end in itself, but as contributing to his larger goals of extending the scope and scale of consciousness beyond Earth, achieving AI-human symbiosis, and transitioning to sustainable energy. In 2014, Musk made a similar decision in support of his goal of transitioning the world to sustainable energy when he released Tesla’s 249 patents into the public domain, saying, “All Our Patent Are Belong To You” (derived from an obscure meme). He open-sourced them.

Update Apr 22, 2022:

OneWeb has also contracted for satellite launches with New Space India Limited (NSI), the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation. They will launch satellites with both NSI and SpaceX in 2022, so the Russian cancellation might not cause a large delay.

Update Apr 27, 2022:

OneWeb has announced that they will begin service in India in early 2023. Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they planned to begin serving India in mid-2022. The invasion cost their schedule to slip by about six months.

NORDVPN DISCOUNT - CircleID x NordVPN
Get NordVPN  [74% +3 extra months, from $2.99/month]
By Larry Press, Professor of Information Systems at California State University

He has been on the faculties of the University of Lund, Sweden and the University of Southern California, and worked for IBM and the System Development Corporation. Larry maintains a blog on Internet applications and implications at cis471.blogspot.com and follows Cuban Internet development at laredcubana.blogspot.com.

Visit Page

Filed Under

Comments

Link to press release Kjetil Torgrim Homme  –  Mar 22, 2022 3:54 PM

A bit curious there was no link to a source for this news, which made me fear it was just fanciful and wishful thinking :-)  Luckily, it is all true.

https://oneweb.net/resources/oneweb-resume-satellite-launches-through-agreement-spacex

I did the same Larry Press  –  Mar 23, 2022 1:23 PM

I was also skeptical when I first saw it and did the same thing as you did.

Note that a few days earlier, I suggested it in a tweet:
https://twitter.com/larrypress/status/1501319803453132811

Comment Title:

  Notify me of follow-up comments

We encourage you to post comments and engage in discussions that advance this post through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can report it using the link at the end of each comment. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of CircleID. For more information on our comment policy, see Codes of Conduct.

CircleID Newsletter The Weekly Wrap

More and more professionals are choosing to publish critical posts on CircleID from all corners of the Internet industry. If you find it hard to keep up daily, consider subscribing to our weekly digest. We will provide you a convenient summary report once a week sent directly to your inbox. It's a quick and easy read.

Related

Topics

Cybersecurity

Sponsored byVerisign

DNS

Sponsored byDNIB.com

Threat Intelligence

Sponsored byWhoisXML API

Domain Names

Sponsored byVerisign

IPv4 Markets

Sponsored byIPv4.Global

New TLDs

Sponsored byRadix

Brand Protection

Sponsored byCSC