OneWeb, the satellite firm rescued by the British government and India’s Bharti Group, resumed flights on Friday in its push to provide global broadband coverage as 36 of its satellites blasted off into orbit from Russia’s Far East, Reuters reported. The launch carried out by Arianespace and its Starsem affiliate was the first fully commercial flight from Russia’s new Vostochny cosmodrome, Russia’s Roscosmos space corporation said. “The Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle together with a Fregat booster and 36 @OneWeb communication satellites lifted off from the #Vostochny cosmodrome,” it tweeted. The launch will expand OneWeb’s number of in-orbit satellites to 110, part of a low earth orbit fleet of 648 designed to establish a high-speed, low-latency global connectivity, the satellite operator said.
