UK Gov Boosts Eutelsat’s OneWeb LEO Broadband Satellites by £140m UPDATE

The UK Government has agreed to commit a further £140m (€163.3) of public investment to help Eutelsat grow and expand its constellation of OneWeb ultrafast broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The funding will be combined with other investments, such as €750m from France (the French State), to support a total capital increase of €1.5 billion (£1.29bn).

Just to recap. OneWeb (aka – Eutelsat OneWeb), which was originally rescued from bankruptcy by the UK government and Bharti before later becoming a part of Eutelsat – with concessions (here), currently has 654 small (c.150kg) first generation (GEN1) LEO platforms in space – orbiting at an altitude of 1,200km (c.600 of them for coverage and the rest for redundancy).

The OneWeb network was finally completed in March 2023 (here), promising both ultrafast broadband speeds and fast latency times. But a further 15 satellites (plus one GEN2 prototype) were then launched in May 2023 to add “resiliency and redundancy to the network” (here) and then another 20 more in October 2024 (here).

The new funding announced yesterday is intended to help secure the execution of Eutelsat’s long-term strategic vision, including for its OneWeb based network of LEO broadband satellites, which have typically been more focused on business and government connectivity (some rural communities have also been connected via distributed WiFi solutions).

The expectation is that this will support the launch of new services, the development of future GEN2 satellites and also underpin Eutelsat’s position on the EU’s own LEO focused IRIS 2 programme – the public-private partnership aiming to build a multi-orbit constellation delivering secure communication services to the EU and its Member States.

Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for DSIT, said:

“From checking the weather forecast on our phones to navigating with GPS in our cars, satellites underpin industrial activity worth £364 billion to the UK economy. But their critical role extends far beyond economic growth. As our adversaries increasingly use space technologies to harm us, resilient satellite connectivity has become essential to our continent’s national security. This investment reflects our commitment to support the development of these critical technologies and maintain an important stake in the global satellite communications sector.”

Joint UK-France Leaders Statement

We are committed to protecting our Critical National Infrastructure that underpins our thriving economies. Satellite connectivity is strategically important to Europe’s security and resilience and the UK’s investment in the Eutelsat Group is a demonstration of our commitment to this important technology, alongside the French Government and other existing shareholders.

The UK will thus join, prorated to its current stake, the capital increase led by the French State and other existing shareholders of Eutelsat announced on June 19 – taking the total amount of capital raised to €1.5 billion. In the context of European Space Projects, we welcome UK suppliers bidding for supply chain commercial contracts when conditions are met.

We will also work towards a resilient terrestrial alternative to Global Navigation Satellite Systems.

The mention of GNSS at the end is something that the UK Government has long envisaged for future satellites under the OneWeb constellation, although thus far it’s yet to materialise. But OneWeb did originally plan to launch another 1,280 satellites in the future (funds allowing), which were expected to reflect a GEN2 model that could sit in a higher Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) of 8,500km. The GEN2s are widely expected to have more data capacity (faster broadband speeds), support for 5G mobile and may, possibly, also introduce enhanced navigation and positioning features (GNSS).

However, the official funding announcement didn’t include a lot of detail on precisely how the new funding would be invested, but it does at least ensure that OneWeb will continue to be developed. The agreement, once fully approved, would leave the French State holding a stake of 29.65% of the capital and voting rights, while Bharti Space Limited, the UK Government, CMA CGM and FSP would respectively hold 17.88%, 10.89%, 7.46%, and 4.99% of the share capital and voting rights.

The deal naturally remains subject to the usual approvals by shareholders (meeting due to be held in Q3-2025) and regulators, which look likely to be achieved by the end of this year.

UPDATE 16th July 2025

The UK Space Agency yesterday stated that OneWeb “plans to extend the constellation by a further 100 satellites by 2026“. This appears to align with Eutelsat’s June 2025 announcement, which revealed some wider details about how the new funding would be invested over the next few years:

Eutelsat’s June 2025 Funding Announcement

Gross capital expenditures are expected to reach approximately €1.0 to €1.1 billion in fiscal year 2025–26, reflecting the timing of key milestones — including the order of an initial batch of 100 additional satellites starting in December 2024, as well as the procurement of 340 more satellites for the current LEO constellation.

From 2025–26 onwards, gross capex will be focused on LEO activities, in line with the Group’s strategic vision, primarily for the Gen-1 follow-on program (with a total envelope of €2 billion between 2024–25 and 2028–29). Gross capex will also be deployed for GEO operations to ensure service continuity.

Take note that some of the above will be referencing the satellites that are to be delivered under the EU’s new IRIS2 project, which will eventually reflect a multi-orbital constellation of 290 satellites in MEO and LEO orbits.

The UK Space Agency separately highlighted how it planned to “use the UK’s low Earth orbit assets to deliver transformative new capabilities, including in broadband, position, navigation and timing, and Earth observation“.