Eutelsat/OneWeb to launch new 340 satellites by 2027
More business for rockets! The internet satellite company Eutelsat/OneWeb now has plans to launch another 340 satellites by 2027, partly to replace aging satellites but also to upgrade its constellation.
Eutelsat OneWeb plans to deploy a constellation of over 340 satellites for its second-generation (Gen-2) low-earth orbit (LEO) network by 2027, as it looks to strengthen its business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) offerings globally. Neha Idnani, Regional Vice President for Asia Pacific at Eutelsat OneWeb, told Business Today in an exclusive interaction that the company is gearing up for the next phase of its orbital expansion to boost network capacity, resilience and coverage worldwide.
OneWeb began deploying its Gen-1 satellites in 2019 and operates a constellation of around 640 satellites as of 2025. While the network is fully operational, close to 100 satellites from the initial fleet are due for replenishment. The Gen-2 rollout will mark a shift to a more advanced and flexible network architecture.
The article at the link touts India’s space agency ISRO as a likely launch provider for those missions, which isn’t surprising as a substantial percentage of Eutelsat/OneWeb is owned by an Indian investor. It is also likely however that other companies, including SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Rocket Lab, will be considered also.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
More business for rockets! The internet satellite company Eutelsat/OneWeb now has plans to launch another 340 satellites by 2027, partly to replace aging satellites but also to upgrade its constellation.
Eutelsat OneWeb plans to deploy a constellation of over 340 satellites for its second-generation (Gen-2) low-earth orbit (LEO) network by 2027, as it looks to strengthen its business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) offerings globally. Neha Idnani, Regional Vice President for Asia Pacific at Eutelsat OneWeb, told Business Today in an exclusive interaction that the company is gearing up for the next phase of its orbital expansion to boost network capacity, resilience and coverage worldwide.
OneWeb began deploying its Gen-1 satellites in 2019 and operates a constellation of around 640 satellites as of 2025. While the network is fully operational, close to 100 satellites from the initial fleet are due for replenishment. The Gen-2 rollout will mark a shift to a more advanced and flexible network architecture.
The article at the link touts India’s space agency ISRO as a likely launch provider for those missions, which isn’t surprising as a substantial percentage of Eutelsat/OneWeb is owned by an Indian investor. It is also likely however that other companies, including SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Rocket Lab, will be considered also.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Boy, if Neutron were operational now, they could have a shot at landing a lot of this business.
But based on RL’s projections, they won’t launch more than 5 times in 2027, and unless that changes (which is unlikely, I fear) that leaves, once again, SpaceX as the launcher with lots of spare launch capacity to sell.
So OneWeb may try to spread the business around, but I assume most of those 340 satellites will launch on SpaceX.
Richard M,
Entirely probable.
I think the key sentence in the excerpt our host provided us is the following:
“The Gen-2 rollout will mark a shift to a more advanced and flexible network architecture.”
I suspect this means the new sats will have some form of sat-to-sat cross-link capability – maybe RF, maybe lasers – and the on-board routing hardware and software to make use of same. Greg Wyler left all of that off of the original constellation sats for what I think were two main reasons. First, it’s a difficult and expensive thing to engineer from scratch, so much cheaper to take a pass. Second, Wyler seems to have entertained entirely unrealistic hopes of selling his services to the Russians and the PRC so his architecture didn’t allow for any get-around of domestic filtering and censorship. The Russians have elected to do without LEO broadband and the PRC has elected to build its own – outcomes that were entirely predictable from the get-go.
So, if OneWeb’s current owners intend to compete on anything like a level playing field with Starlink and Amazon Leo – particularly for applications in remote areas or for over-water aviation and blue water ships, their net needs on-sat routing and inter-satellite links.
Wyler is one of the starry-eyed NewSpacers.
Where did he get the idea that China or Russia would treat with him?
Ideology?
I can’t argue with that.
Jeff Wright,
Wyler always struck me as being more a cynical grifter than a starry-eyed naif. He’s always been far better at talking a good game than at following through. I think he was simply overconfident that his gift of gab would net him any business in Russia and the PRC. The leaders of both places are also cynical grifters – and better ones to boot. Thus they recognized Wyler for exactly what he was.
Ha!
Same with Gary Hudson?
It seemed the very mention of his name was the kiss of death on any project.
Jeff Wright,
No. I’ve met the man. Even bought him lunch once just to pick his brain. Gary Hudson was simply a man too far ahead of his time and always without adequate resources. His failures owed far more to relentless NASA opposition and bad-mouthing to his potential investors – especially by your scumbag “heroes” at Marshall – than to any other single cause. The wonder is not that he had a couple of failures, but that he ever got as far as he did given the establishment headwinds he was facing into.