War in Ukraine Casts Shadow Over Future OneWeb Satellite Launches UPDATE2

Calls are growing for the UK Government to take action to stop OneWeb, a British-registered company where it holds a key £400m stake after helping to rescue it from bankruptcy in 2020 (alongside a consortium of investors), from using Russian rockets for future launches of OneWeb’s ultrafast low-latency broadband satellites.

OneWeb has already launched a total of 428 small c.150kg Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites into space – orbiting at an altitude of around 1,200km – and their initial plan is to build a constellation of 648 (588 are needed for coverage – the rest are for redundancy), which is enough for a reasonable level of global coverage by around June 2022. The UK government also holds an ambition to add navigation and positioning features to the firm’s next generation satellites.

Some of those LEOs have been lifted to orbit aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket (carrying 36 satellites at a time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and the next launch is due to take place on Friday. But this plan has now clashed with Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine and the massive global response to that (i.e. heavy sanctions and restrictions against Putin’s regime and wider Russia).

Yesterday the MP for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, Luke Pollard (Labour), said: “It is not right that UK-funded satellite launches are taking place in what is effectively a Russian-backed facility. I would also like to press him on whether our UK satellites could be launched from our European facilities in French Guyana, which would ensure that we keep control and that progress on that project was unhindered.”

The Chair of the Commons Business Select Committee, Darren Jones MP (Labour), has similarly written an Open Letter to the government that raises the same concerns.

A UK Government Spokesperson said (BBC News):

“It is right for questions to be raised about future space cooperation with Russia following the illegal invasion of Ukraine. We are monitoring the situation closely and engaging regularly with our partners, keeping next steps under review.”

The big challenge here is that Russian-owned entities have already been pre-paid for the remaining launches, and finding availability via alternative rockets is not a simple matter – there’s a long lead-time and rockets have to be specially adapted, which is slow and expensive work. Not to mention that the UK government’s stake in OneWeb, while still holding a golden share, is not the biggest and its influence may thus be on the wane.

Striking a balance between punishing Putin and limiting self-harm is never easy. If the government takes action to scrub the launches, then it would cause a significant delay to OneWeb’s plan and damage its many contractual supply and distribution agreements, which are essential for underpinning the company’s plan for commercial viability. Russia could then potentially also sell the spare launch capacity to somebody else, which admittedly might not be easy in the current climate.

As it stands, there are only a handful of launches left, and they’re all due to be lofted via Russian Soyuz vehicles. Awkward.

UPDATE 2:52pm

The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, has contacted OneWeb and its partner Arianespace to demand “comprehensive legally binding guarantees” that the LEO satellites will not be used for military purposes (BBC News). “If by 21:30 on March 4 we do not receive confirmation, the rocket will be removed from the launch pad and the satellites will be sent to the assembly and test building.”

The OneWeb contract has already been paid in full, but Roscosmos warned that without such a commitment: “This money, due to force majeure circumstances that have arisen as a result of the aggressive policy of the West and the sanctions that are applied against Russia, this money will remain in Russia.”

Russia’s space agency later demanded that the UK government withdraw its shareholding from the London-headquartered company, which is about as likely to happen as Putin converting his tanks into ice cream vans. As for the question of military purposes, defence and security has always been talked about alongside OneWeb, albeit seemingly more intended for future satellites (e.g. navigation features) rather than the first generation.

UPDATE 3rd March 2022

Perhaps unsurprisingly – “The Board of OneWeb has voted to suspend all launches from Baikonur,” said a spokesperson for the company (this covers all 6 remaining launches).