Eutelsat orders 229 new OneWeb satelites from Airbus
The European satellite company Eutelsat yesterday awarded Airbus a contract to build 229 new OneWeb satellites.
Eutelsat has signed an Authorisation to Proceed (ATP) with Airbus Defence and Space covering initial industrial activities for these 229 satellites. They are planned in addition to the 440 satellites already procured from Airbus due for delivery and launch soon. It will bring the total of new OneWeb satellites manufactured by Airbus to 669, and will ensure and enhance service continuity of the OneWeb constellation.
The satellites will be manufactured at Airbus Defence and Space’s Toulouse facility, already actively delivering the previous batches, enabling production continuity, rapid and homogeneous delivery rate.
The constellation presently has over 600 satellites in orbit. The press release did not reveal how much Eutelsat will pay Airbus for this work, nor did it provide a timeline for delivery. In addition, Eutelsat made no mention of a launch provider to get the satellites into orbit, though in 2022 it signed up Relativity’s not-yet-launched Terran-R and in 2024 Mitsubishi’s H3 rocket for this work. Previously it had largely depended on Russia’s Soyuz-2 rocket, but that deal ended when Russia invaded the Ukraine. Subsequently SpaceX and India picked up the slack so the launches could go on more or less on schedule, but since then Eutelsat has clearly worked to find other rockets for its launches.
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7ulIF1_w6zk&pp=ugUHEgVlbi1HQg%3D%3D