The Indian Space Research Organisation on Sunday successfully launched 36 OneWeb satellites into space. The spacecraft lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota and minutes later reached the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with probes from the UK-based company.
Company to implement constellation of Low Earth Orbit satellites
According to sources, the OneWeb constellation is a network of satellites around the planet aimed at providing broadband connectivity across the world. The UK company is implementing a constellation of Low Earth Orbit satellites. India’s Bharti Enterprises serves as a major investor and shareholder in OneWeb.
This was the second launch of the LVM-III with the OneWeb satellites as part of a contract between the UK company and New Space India Limited (NSIL). The deployment of the satellites took 75 minutes long, one of the longest for the spacecraft.
Each satellite weighs 150kg and were deployed in 12 planes, with each plane separated by 4km in altitude to prevent collision.
The launch used the redesignated LVM-III, which is India's heaviest launch vehicle. Earlier, it was known as Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle Mark-III (GSLV-MkIII).
In October last year, the ISRO successfully launched the first batch of 36 satellites by OneWeb from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, marking the entry of LVM-3 into the global commercial launch service market.
NewSpace India, a central public sector enterprise under the department of space, had earlier signed two launch service contracts with the London-headquartered Network Access Associated Limited that runs OneWeb.
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