ISRO’s commercial arm, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), has placed 36 satellites in the Low Earth Orbit for UK’s global communication network OneWeb.
NSIL used Vehicle Mark III (LVM3) rocket to lift off its heaviest payload (5,796 kg) into space from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
The mission named ‘OneWeb India-1 mission/ LVM3 M2’ is LVM3’s first commercial launch. LVM3 has the credibility of carrying out four consecutive successful missions in the past, including the Chandrayaan-2 mission. In 75 minutes after shooting off, LVM3 unloaded the satellites in their orbit.
Addressing the media during the occasion, ISRO’s chairman Dr. S Somnath said, “Our Diwali has started.” He also threw light on ISRO’s upcoming Chandrayaan-3 mission. He said the final integration and testing are near complete. However, since some more tests are pending, the space agency has chosen June (2023) slot to launch Chandrayaan-3.
Earlier, in August, ISRO faced a setback when its Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) couldn’t achieve its orbit making the satellites sent unusable. However, with the success of LVM3’s first commercial mission, NSIL will repeat the launch to place another 36 satellites of OneWeb into the Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
OneWeb’s executive chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal dubbed the launch “a significant milestone for the company.”
With the launch, OneWeb now has a constellation of 462 LEO broadband communications satellites, which is 70% of the 648 communication satellites it has planned. With four more launches, OneWeb will be ready for global coverage.
In India, the global communication network is planning to provide high-speed, low-latency connectivity across the length and breadth of the country (From Ladakh to Kanyakumari and Gujarat to Arunachal Pradesh).
On the global front, OneWeb is in merger talks with Paris-based Eutelsat, which operates telecommunications spacecraft in the geostationary orbit at an altitude of 35,0000 km. Eutelsat is among the leading global distributors in the direct-to-home TV segment.
Image: ISRO