Eutelsat buys further 229 OneWeb LEO broadband satellites from Airbus

Eutelsat has revealed that they’ve purchased an additional 229 satellites for OneWeb’s constellation of ultrafast broadband spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which is in addition to the 440 already procured from Airbus. A total of 669 new satellites have now been procured and they’ve also chosen Arianespace to help launch some of these in 2027 and 2028.

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

However, LEO satellites are only designed to stay in orbit around the Earth for c.5 years or more before being dragged back down to burn up in the atmosphere, which means that Eutelsat has long been planning to renew and enhance the OneWeb constellation (aka – “Eutelsat Next“).

The new satellites will also help to support Eutelsat’s part in the EU’s 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. The commercial IRIS 2 Ku-band constellation is expected to be operational by mid-2032.

Otherwise, the first satellites from the existing Airbus order are expected to be delivered next quarter, while today’s additional 229 satellites – backed by an estimated investment of €1bn (£858m) – will enable Eutelsat to continue progressively replenishing and expanding OneWeb through 2034, “securing continuity of service while unlocking additional capacity and capabilities for existing and new customers“.

Jean-François Fallacher, CEO of Eutelsat, said:

“This is an exciting next step for OneWeb and for Eutelsat’s LEO strategy. With the first satellites from the 440 due for delivery and launch soon, our replenishment programme is moving forward. The planned addition of 229 more satellites will further strengthen OneWeb, while IRIS² will bring significant new capacity and capabilities. Together, they give us a powerful roadmap to serve our customers, grow our LEO business and reinforce our role at the heart of Europe’s sovereign connectivity future.”

The replacement (GEN2) satellites are expected to be more capable than the first generation, likely delivering faster broadband speeds, 5G mobile support and possibly even introducing some enhanced navigation and positioning features (something the UK government previously wanted).

A prototype GEN2 that was launched in 2023, called “Joey-Sat”, added 5G support, a digitally regenerative on-board processor from Satixfy (i.e. better performance and latency) and a multi-beam phased array that incorporates beam-steering and beam-hopping antennas (i.e. can be used to boost coverage in areas of high usage).

Sadly, Eutelsat isn’t as good as Starlink at broadcasting the capabilities of their latest hardware, so we don’t yet know the full list of new features. The official announcement merely confirmed they would include “advanced digital channelisers to enhance onboard processing, efficiency and flexibility, as well as capabilities to embark hosted payloads“.

Finally, Eutelsat separately announced that they had selected Arianespace for two upcoming OneWeb LEO launches in 2027 and 2028, which will use Ariane 64 rockets, the most powerful version of the Ariane 6. The launches will take place from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The announcement doesn’t state how many of the satellites each launch will be able to loft, but in theory it could be up to 80 OneWeb satellites if they were GEN1 (we’re not sure how heavy/big GEN2 will be).