All 36 UK OneWeb communications satellites have been placed into their target orbits after a launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Monday, Russian space corporation Roscosmos said, Trend reports citing TASS.
"All 36 #OneWeb communications satellites successfully separated from the Fregat booster and were put into their target orbits," the state corporation said on Twitter.
A Soyuz-2.2b rocket blasted off Baikonur at 4:10 pm Moscow time on Monday. The satellites separated from the booster in stages. As a result of the latest launch, the number of the UK company’s in-orbit satellites increased to 394.
This was the first time that as many as 36 OneWeb satellites went into space from Baikonur. Previously, launches were for 34 satellites at a time.
The first six OneWeb satellites went into orbit onboard a Soyuz-ST rocket from the Kourou spaceport in February 2019. The satellites have also been launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome.
The launches are part of a contract that Russia’s Glavkosmos has with Arianespace and Starsem.