(Bloomberg) — OneWeb Ltd will use rival Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. to launch satellites after Russia blocked deployments planned with French rocket company Arianespace SA.
The back-up plan, which was announced Monday in a statement, will let OneWeb continue deploying the remaining 220 spacecraft out of its initial planned fleet of 648. With them, it plans to beam broadband down from low-Earth orbit to businesses and government customers.
The move means OneWeb will be paying its competitor, SpaceX, which has launched about 2,000 satellites so far to create its own low-Earth orbit satellite system, Starlink.
Russia refused to let OneWeb go ahead with a March 5 launch in the Kremlin-controlled Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan using a Russian-supplied Soyuz rocket — operated by Arianespace — unless the U.K. sold its stake in the business and OneWeb committed it would never be used for military applications. OneWeb canceled the launches.
OneWeb will resume launches in 2022, the London-based company said in a statement Monday, adding that detailed terms of the deal were confidential. A OneWeb spokeswoman declined to answer questions about the deal with Arianespace or the financial implications of the switch. Representatives for Arianespace didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
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