The initial deployment of OneWeb’s satellite broadband constellation reached its halfway stage on Thursday with the launch of 36 more spacecraft aboard a Russian Soyuz 2.1b rocket. Liftoff from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Eastern Russia occurred at 18:40 local time (09:40 UTC) on October 14.
Thursday’s launch is the 11th in a series of flights to deploy OneWeb’s initial constellation of 648 satellites. With 322 satellites already in orbit and 36 more on the way with this launch, the completion of this mission means more than half of the initial constellation has been deployed.