OneWeb’s broadband network is hoped to return to action this Friday, December 18 (Image: Getty)
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The rocket’s four first-stage boosters will jettison about two minutes after launch, followed by separation of the payload fairing a minute later.
The second, core, stage of the rocket will shut down and fall away two minutes after that, giving way to a third stage engine for a burn lasting more than four minutes.
The third stage will release the Fregat upper stage, followed by ignition of the Fregat main engine, roughly a minute later to place the OneWeb satellites into a preliminary parking orbit.
British firm OneWeb today launched its first batch of broadband satellites into orbit since surviving bankruptcy - in a bid to take on SpaceX s Starlink network.
Now jointly owned by Indian conglomerate Bharti Global and the UK government, OneWeb launched 36 satellites at 12:26 GMT from Russia on a Soyuz rocket.
The firm has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to compete with Starlink, as the latest batch brings it up to 110 satellites in orbit compared to 800 from SpaceX.
They launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia where an Arianespace Soyuz rocket placed the satellites in a near-polar orbit above the Earth.
On October 7, in the presence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was paying an official visit to the United Kingdom, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Andriy Taran and the UK’s Secretary of State for Defense Ben Wallace signed a memorandum on enhancing bilateral cooperation in the military and military-technical spheres (President.gov.ua, October 7; see EDM, October 29). An important aspect of this document was a funding pledge from the UK’s export credit agency in the amount of 1.25 billion pounds ($1.68 billion) for the construction of missile boats and new naval infrastructure in Ukraine.
Missile boats and naval bases are critically important to Ukraine’s capacity to deter an enemy as well as respond in a crisis in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. These capabilities are crucial to Ukraine in this closed maritime theater considering Russia’s overwhelming superiority when it comes to anti-ship missiles. At least eight UK-designed missile boats equipped with NSM an
By Maria Burke2020-12-17T15:48:00+00:00
The post-Brexit transition period ends on 31 December 2020. The UK government and the EU are negotiating right up to the wire on the details of their future relationship. If no agreement is reached by the time the transition period ends, vast swathes of the economy and society will be affected, not least by the high levels of uncertainty associated with no-deal. The regulations that oversee the movement of people, goods and services would change abruptly overnight with huge implications for research funding and employment, and access to data and supplies. While the UK government has tried to reassure the science community, there is a significant lack of clarity and detail on how they plan to protect the sector. But one thing’s for certain, the UK’s relationship with Europe will never be the same again, and will likely require constant adjustments and negotiations for years to come.
European comet chaser probe to be designed in UK
Design work will soon begin in the UK on the spacecraft for a new European Space Agency science mission, which will 3D-map a comet for the first time
From: Credit: Thales Alenia Space
Thales Alenia Space, who have three sites in the UK and employ nearly 200 highly skilled engineers and scientists, have won one of two parallel mission study contracts for the design concept of the mothership and a smaller robotic probe for the European Space Agency (ESA) Comet Interceptor mission. Design work is also taking place in Italy.
The mission will see one main spacecraft and two smaller robotic probes – the other built by the Japanese Space Agency – travel to an as-yet unidentified comet, and map it in three dimensions.