OneWeb

OneWeb (legally Network Access Associates Ltd) [6] (formerly WorldVu Satellites Ltd) is a global communications company building a capability to deliver broadband satellite internet services to a geographically global demographic.[4][7] with offices in California,[8] The company is headquartered in London, England, United Kingdom and has a satellite manufacturing facility in Florida – OneWeb Satellites – that is a joint venture with Airbus Defence and Space. The company was formerly known as WorldVu Satellites Ltd.[9][10]

OneWeb
TypePrivate
IndustrySatellite Internet access
PredecessorWorldVu Satellites
Founded2012
FounderGreg Wyler [1][2][3]
HeadquartersLondon, England, U.K. [4]
Area served
Global
Key people
Neil Masterson (CEO)[5]
OwnerGovernment of the United Kingdom (50%)
Bharti Enterprises (50%)
Number of employees
 ~80 (March 2020)
SubsidiariesOneWeb Satellites
Websitewww.oneweb.world

The company was founded by Greg Wyler in 2012[1][2][3] but entered bankruptcy in March 2020 after failing to raise the requisite capital to complete the build and deployment of the remaining 90% of the network. The company laid off approximately 85% of its approximately 500 employees, but retained the capability to control its operational satellites during the period of court protection.[11][12] The company emerged from the bankruptcy proceedings and reorganization in November 2020 with a new ownership group—led by Bharti Global and the Government of the United Kingdom, each holding 42.2% of the company equity and board. OneWeb re-affirmed intent to continue to build out the satellite constellation.[5]

OneWeb commenced launches of the OneWeb satellite constellation, a network of more than 650 low Earth orbit satellites, in February 2019,[13] and by March 2020, had launched 74 of the planned 648 satellites in the initial constellation. OneWeb's goal has been to provide internet services to "everyone, everywhere", delivering internet connections to rural and remote places as well as to a range of markets. The post-bankruptcy company leadership launched an additional 36 OneWeb satellites on 18 December 2020.[5]

History
OneWeb satellite manufacturing facility in Merritt Island, Florida.

The company was founded in 2012 under the name WorldVu,[10] based in Britain's Channel Islands.[14]

In 2015, OneWeb secured US$500 million in funding, and agreed to purchase certain future launch services, from existing aerospace industry companies Arianespace and Virgin Galactic.[15][16] In June 2015, OneWeb also entered into a deal with Airbus Defence and Space for the construction of its broadband Internet satellites after a competition among American and European manufacturers.[17]

In July 2016, one year after the initial announcement, OneWeb stated they were on schedule.[18] In December 2016, OneWeb raised US$1 billion from SoftBank Group Corp. and US$200 million from existing investors.[19][20]

In February 2017, OneWeb announced that it expected to sell all of its capacity by launch time, yet the only announced capacity sold was for a joint Gogo and Intelsat venture. Wyler announced he was considering nearly quadrupling the size of the satellite constellation by adding 1972 additional satellites that it has priority rights to.[19] With the original capital raise of US$500 million in 2015, plus the US$1 billion investment of SoftBank in 2016, previous "investors committed to an additional US$200 million, bringing OneWeb's total capital raised to US$1.7 billion".[19] A merger arrangement with Intelsat that had been in negotiations during May 2017 collapsed in June 2017 and did not go forward.[21]

By 2019, OneWeb had formed a joint venture — OneWeb Satellites — with the European company Airbus Defence and Space in order to manufacturer its satellites in higher volume and at lower cost than any satellites previously built by Airbus. A manufacturing facility was built in Merritt Island, Florida. Initial satellite production at the new facility began in mid-2019 and by January 2020, the factory reached the target production rate of two satellites per day.[22]

On 27 February 2019, OneWeb successfully launched its first six satellites into 1200 km [23] low Earth orbit from the Centre Spatial Guyanais in French Guiana using a Soyuz-2 launch vehicle.[24] The same day OneWeb announced that it signed its first two client agreements marking the beginning of its commercialisation.[25] On 18 March 2019, OneWeb announced it had secured US$1.25 billion in funding following a successful first launch. The funding was from existing investors SoftBank and Qualcomm, as well as Grupo Salinas and the Government of Rwanda.[26]

By August 2019, the company had 6 of its satellites broadcasting at the right frequencies for 90 days, meeting the "use-it-or-lose-it" spectrum conditions set by the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU).[27] This secured the vital rights OneWeb needed to operate its global satellite broadband network.[14]

In February and March 2020, the company launched an additional 68 satellites to orbit, stating that it would slow down for a minor design modification to be made before planning to launch again in May 2020.[22]

Bankruptcy

In March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 stock market crash, OneWeb faced a liquidity crisis and considered bankruptcy.[28] By the time of the bankruptcy filing, the company had reduced its workforce from 531 employees to 74. The effect on the previously planned ten launches in 2020 was not publicly discussed.[29]

On 27 March 2020, OneWeb Global Limited and 18 affiliates filed for bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.[30][12] The company blamed the COVID-19 pandemic, but the high-cost structure of OneWeb's contracted launches and satellites relative to the market size and other emerging competition – principally SpaceX's self-launched Starlink constellation – were thought to be challenging prior to the emergence of the pandemic.[11] Airbus OneWeb Satellites (AOS), the joint venture between OneWeb and Airbus Defence and Space to build the satellites, said it had made temporary furloughs due to the pandemic but that they were not due to the bankruptcy filing.[31]

On 3 July 2020, a consortium led Bharti Global and the Government of the United Kingdom won the auction to purchase the bankrupt company, with each of the two parties expected to invest US$500 million for a combined investment of US$1 billion.[32][33][34][35]

Exit from bankruptcy protection

On 3 July 2020, the Government of the United Kingdom and Sunil Mittal's Bharti Global (formerly a partner of OneWeb) announced a joint plan to invest US$500 million each for equal stakes in OneWeb Global (approximately 45% each); the rest would be held by other creditors including Softbank. The U.K. government would also hold a golden share to give it control over any future sales.[36][37] The deal was approved by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on 10 July 2020,[38] and later that month Hughes Network Systems invested US$50 million in the consortium.[39] In July 2020, the U.K. government planned to repurpose the OneWeb satellites for its own Global Navigation Satellite System,[36] and in September 2020 the earlier alternative proposal was cancelled.[40]

Shortly after the July public announcement, it emerged that Sam Beckett, the leading civil servant in the U.K. Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), had warned ministers that taxpayers' money was at risk. She wrote her concerns in a "ministerial direction" letter, leading to a formal order from BEIS minister Alok Sharma to override those concerns and proceed with the bid.[41]

Seeking to clear bankruptcy under new ownership before the end of the year 2020, OneWeb announced on 21 September 2020 that it was set to resume launching satellites for its global broadband network in December 2020 under a modified 16-launch contract with Arianespace,[42] with the next launch scheduled for December 2020 with 36 satellites. The payloads would ride to orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket and Fregat upper stage launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia, according to Arianespace.[42]

OneWeb formally exited bankruptcy protection by the U.S. court on 20 November 2020, and announced that the "sale to an ownership group led by Bharti Global and the British government has closed" together with the completion of a number of the regulatory approvals. Neil Masterson, formerly chief operating officer at media company Thomson Reuters, was appointed CEO around the same time. The company confirmed the plan to launch 36 additional satellites on 17 December 2020.[5] Furthermore, OneWeb announced plans to accelerate launches in 2021 to have 650 satellites in orbit by 2022 necessary for global coverage.[43]

Satellites
Main article: OneWeb satellite constellation
Model of a OneWeb satellite

In 2016, OneWeb planned for a launch cadence of 30–36 satellites a month [44] to create an initial constellation of 650 satellites. The satellites operate in low Earth orbit (LEO). OneWeb chose an altitude of 1200 km for its satellites because there is a minimum existing population of satellites and debris at that altitude.[45]

Like existing LEO based communications satellite constellations, OneWeb's satellites are closer to Earth and will, therefore, provide much lower transmission delays than geostationary satellite broadband services.[27] As late as January 2020, OneWeb was still planning to provide 10 times the bandwidth and one-tenth of the latency of existing geostationary satellites.[46]

OneWeb's factory in Exploration Park on Merritt Island, Florida opened in July 2019, just outside the gates of NASA's Kennedy Space Center.[47][48] The factory is a joint venture with Airbus and has a production capacity of eight satellites per week.[49] The satellites will be programmed to detect the end of their life span after 5–7 years in orbit, and deorbit themselves from space and so that they burn up in the atmosphere as they descend towards Earth.[48]

Responsible space

In June 2019, OneWeb rolled out its initiative Responsible Space to outline the specific approaches it plans to take to promote sustainability and safe operations in space.[45] Responsible Space covers design and operational practices, including disposal of a satellite within 5 years of the end of its mission; developing an "ecosystem" within the space industry that supports sustainability; and collaboration with other space operators.[45] As one example, OneWeb plans to include a grapple fixture on its satellites so that a third-party satellite could grab it and tug it out of orbit, should the satellite prove non-responsive.[45]

References
  1. "Podcast: The satellite boom that threatens to clog the skies". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  2. "Soyuz launches 34 OneWeb satellites". SpaceNews. 21 March 2020. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  3. Brodkin, Jon (30 March 2020). "OneWeb goes bankrupt, lays off staff, will sell satellite-broadband business". Ars Technica. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  4. OneWeb (8 March 2018). "OneWeb Finalizes Executive Team Appointments Leading Up to the Launch of Global Constellation and Services". PR Newswire. Retrieved 22 April 2019.
  5. "OneWeb emerges from Chapter 11 with new CEO". BBC News. 18 December 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2020.
  6. "Privacy Policy". OneWeb World. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  7. "£18m for OneWeb satellite constellation to deliver global communications". UK Space Agency. 18 February 2019.
  8. Yamazaki, Makiko (19 December 2016). "SoftBank to invest US$1 billion in U.S. venture OneWeb as part of US$50 billion pledge". Reuters. Retrieved 28 March 2020.
  9. de Selding, Peter B. (15 January 2015). "Virgin, Qualcomm Invest in OneWeb Satellite Internet Venture". SpaceNews. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  10. "OneWeb Announces Plans to Launch a New Satellite Constellation to Bring High-Speed Internet to Underserved Areas Around the World". PR Newswire. 15 January 2015. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  11. Henry, Caleb (27 March 2020). "OneWeb files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy". SpaceNews. Retrieved 28 March 2020.
  12. Oberhaus, Daniel (27 March 2020). "SpaceX Competitor OneWeb Is Reportedly Bankrupt". Wired. Retrieved 28 March 2020.
  13. Hanneke, Weitering (27 February 2019). "Soyuz Rocket Will Launch the 1st OneWeb Satellites Today". Space.com. Retrieved 27 February 2019.
  14. de Selding, Peter B. (3 September 2014). "WorldVu, a Satellite Startup Aiming To Provide Global Internet Connectivity, Continues To Grow Absent Clear Google Relationship". SpaceNews. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  15. Boyle, Alan (25 June 2015). "OneWeb Wins US$500 Million in Backing for Internet Satellite Network". NBC News. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  16. de Selding, Peter B. (30 May 2014). "Google-backed Global Broadband Venture Secures Spectrum for Satellite Network". SpaceNews. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  17. Clark, Stephen. "OneWeb selects Airbus to build 900 Internet satellites". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  18. de Selding, Peter B. (6 July 2016). "One year after kickoff, OneWeb says its 700-satellite constellation is on schedule". SpaceNews. Retrieved 28 March 2020.
  19. Pultarova, Tereza (24 February 2017). "OneWeb weighing 2,000 more satellites". SpaceNews. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
  20. Weir, Keith. "SoftBank to invest US$1 billion in U.S. satellite venture OneWeb". Reuters. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  21. Henry, Caleb (1 June 2017). "OneWeb says no steam lost despite Intelsat merger unravelling". SpaceNews. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
  22. Henry, Caleb (6 February 2020). "OneWeb plans April launch break to tweak satellite design". SpaceNews. Retrieved 23 March 2020.
  23. "OneWeb - Satellite Missions". directory.eoportal.org. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
  24. "OneWeb makes history as first launch mission is a success". OneWeb. 28 February 2019. Archived from the original on 15 May 2019. Retrieved 28 February 2019.
  25. "OneWeb Announces First Two Client Agreements - Start of Commercial Network Commercialisation". OneWeb. 27 February 2019. Archived from the original on 12 May 2019. Retrieved 27 February 2019.
  26. Vance, Ashlee (18 March 2019). "OneWeb Raises Fresh US$1.25 Billion for Internet System From Space". Bloomberg. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  27. Seal, Thomas (7 August 2019). "OneWeb Claims a Win in Internet Space Race Against Musk and Bezos". Bloomberg. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
  28. Ronalds-Hannon, Eliza (19 March 2020). "SoftBank's OneWeb to Consider Bankruptcy as Cash Dwindles". Bloomberg Technology. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  29. Berger, Eric (23 March 2020). "OneWeb Says It Will Have To Cut Workers Amid Economic Crisis". Ars technica. Retrieved 23 March 2020.
  30. Clark, Stephen (30 March 2020). "OneWeb files for bankruptcy". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
  31. Foust, Jeff [@jeff_foust] (30 March 2020). "OneWeb Satellites... has implemented "temporary furloughs" of staff, but says that is due to COVID-19 and not OneWeb's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing" (Tweet). Retrieved 30 March 2020 – via Twitter.
  32. "Sunil Mittal's Bharti Global, UK govt win bid for bankrupt satellite firm OneWeb". businesstoday.in. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  33. "UK government takes £400m stake in satellite firm OneWeb". BBC News. 3 July 2020.
  34. O'Callaghan, Jonathan. "U.K. Government Wins Controversial Bid For Bankrupt Mega Constellation Firm OneWeb". forbes.com. Forbes. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  35. "Press release: UK government to acquire cutting-edge satellite network". gov.uk. Cabinet Office Government Digital Service. 3 July 2020. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  36. "UK government takes £400 million stake in satellite firm OneWeb". BBC News. 3 July 2020.
  37. "UK to enter satellite race after winning bid for OneWeb". Financial Times. 3 July 2020.
  38. Amos, Jonathan (10 July 2020). "OneWeb sale to UK-Bharti group gets court approval". BBC News. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
  39. "Hughes to invest US$50 million in Bharti-UK consortium for OneWeb". thehindubusinessline.com. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  40. Diver, Tony (25 September 2020). "Britain scraps satellite programme designed to replace Galileo after Brexit". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  41. "Minister overrode warning about "risky" OneWeb bid". BBC News. 22 July 2020. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  42. "OneWeb to resume launches in December after bankruptcy". Spaceflight Now. 22 September 2020. Retrieved 24 September 2020.
  43. Times, Financial (22 November 2020). "UK government buys chunk of bankrupt Starlink competitor, OneWeb". Ars Technica. Retrieved 23 November 2020.
  44. Henry, Caleb (17 September 2019). "LEO constellation operators OneWeb, Iridium announce collaboration". SpaceNews. Retrieved 20 December 2019.
  45. Foust, Jeff (3 September 2019). "Can satellite megaconstellations be responsible users of space?". SpaceNews. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
  46. Mathieson, S.A. (29 May 2019). "Norway's autonomous ships point to new horizons". ComputerWeekly. Retrieved 2 January 2020.
  47. Clark, Stephen (17 March 2020). "Soyuz launch preps in Kazakhstan proceed despite travel restrictions". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  48. Saleh, Malak (29 July 2019). "OneWeb Satellites Opens 85 m Production Facility". Orlando Business Journal. Retrieved 10 January 2020.
  49. "OneWeb's satellite plant returns to full-scale production". UPI. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.