India launches 36 OneWeb satellites
India’s space agency ISRO tonight successfully launched 36 OneWeb satellites using its LVM-M3 rocket, the largest version of its GSLV family of rockets.
This launch completes OneWeb’s constellation, with 618 satellites now in orbit, allowing them to now offer internet access worldwide in competition with Starlink. After Russia broke its contract and confiscated 36 OneWeb satellites, the company contracted SpaceX and ISRO to launch the satellites necessary to complete the constellation, with SpaceX doing three launches and ISRO two.
This was India’s second launch in 2023. The leaders in the 2023 launch race remain the same:
20 SpaceX
11 China
5 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise still leads China 23 to 11 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 23 to 19. SpaceX by itself now trails the entire world, including other American companies, 20 to 22.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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India’s space agency ISRO tonight successfully launched 36 OneWeb satellites using its LVM-M3 rocket, the largest version of its GSLV family of rockets.
This launch completes OneWeb’s constellation, with 618 satellites now in orbit, allowing them to now offer internet access worldwide in competition with Starlink. After Russia broke its contract and confiscated 36 OneWeb satellites, the company contracted SpaceX and ISRO to launch the satellites necessary to complete the constellation, with SpaceX doing three launches and ISRO two.
This was India’s second launch in 2023. The leaders in the 2023 launch race remain the same:
20 SpaceX
11 China
5 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise still leads China 23 to 11 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 23 to 19. SpaceX by itself now trails the entire world, including other American companies, 20 to 22.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Speaking of launch cadence, Elon tweeted out an interesting response to the success of launch #20 yesterday:
“20 launches done, 70+ for rest of year”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1639396253896257536
It’s unclear if this only speaks to Falcon launches, or if it includes Starship, too.
“90 plus” might be a little short of his announced goal of 100 this year, but it will still utterly lap the field. They really have become the juggernaut. Where will they be five years from now?
Appreciate the “in orbit” nomenclature. It’s a bit nostalgic since I’ve felt slightly alienated over all the talk about being exclusively “on orbit” during recent decades….
Michael McNeil,
The way my colleagues and I have always used the terms “in orbit” and “on orbit” is that one of our satellites was “on orbit” once it was in the correct place and was actively stationkeeping. “On orbit” and “on station” seemed synonymous.
I used to build geostationary commercial communication satellites. So, as we watched one of our satellites launch (even before YouTube, launch companies often provided live coverage, similar to what we see with the commercial launchers today), once the upper stage was in its temporary parking orbit, the satellite had made it “to orbit.” Once the stack reached the equator and the upper stage performed its second burn and released the satellite into geostationary transfer orbit, the satellite was still “in orbit” but had not yet reached its designated location in geostationary orbit. As with today’s broadcasts, television coverage ended with the release of the satellite, because the launch company had done its job, and the rest was up to the satellite to perform correctly.
Retired geostationary satellites are raised to a higher orbit before being shut down, keeping them in orbit but no longer on station.
ISRO deserves every ounce of appreciation here. Getting goosebumps everywhere. What a proud moment. Bravo ISRO