Arianespace puts more than a thousand satellites into orbit with flight ST35

On Tuesday, September 14 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Russia (18:07 UTC), Soyuz Flight ST35 took off with 34 satellites OneWeb aboard, bringing, after a perfect deployment, the size of the fleet in orbit to 322. Flight ST35 was the sixtieth Soyuz mission carried out by Arianespace and its affiliate Starsem, and the tenth mission for the benefit of OneWeb.

The mission lasted three hours and 45 minutes. The 34 satellites were separated through nine separation sequences, at an altitude of 450 km. It was also the ninth successful launch by Arianespace teams this year, bringing the total number of spacecraft in orbit since the company's operations began to 1.021. 

"Congratulations to all the teams that have contributed to the history of Arianespace, step by step, since 1980 and since the beginning of our operations. Today we are having a great time as we pass the milestone of 1000 satellites launched into space, while our client OneWeb is taking a new pace with more than 300 satellites in orbit.", he has declared Stephane Israel, CEO of Arianespace. "This launch illustrates the recent acceleration of space operations - a quarter of the 1000 satellites launched by Arianespace have been put into orbit in the past 20 months - and thus commands us, as a leader in the space sector, to embrace our responsibility to promote sustainable space operations, Anyway."

To date, Arianespace has launched 322 OneWeb satellites with ten Soyuz launches. Arianespace will carry out nine more Soyuz launches for OneWeb in 2021 and 2022. These launches will allow OneWeb to complete the deployment of its entire global constellation (650 satellites) in low earth orbit by the end of 2022. 

OneWeb's mission is to create a global connectivity platform through a next-generation satellite constellation in low earth orbit. The OneWeb constellation will provide high-speed, low-latency connectivity to a wide range of customer sectors, including aviation, shipping, business and government. Crucial to its purpose, OneWeb seeks to bring connectivity to hard-to-reach places, where fiber cannot reach, and thus bridge the digital divide.

The satellite's first contractor is OneWeb Satellites, a joint venture of OneWeb and Airbus Defense and Space. The satellites were manufactured in Florida, USA, in state-of-the-art satellite manufacturing facilities that can build up to two satellites per day on a mass production line dedicated to vehicle assembly, integration and testing. The launch of the satellites was operated by Arianespace and its Euro-Russian affiliate Starsem under contract with Glavkosmos, a subsidiary of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. Arianespace is responsible for the overall mission and airworthiness, with Starsem's support for the 

launch campaign activities, including management of its launch facilities at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

RKTs-Progress (the Samara Space Center) is responsible for the design, development, production and integration of the Soyuz launch vehicle and the 3-stage Soyuz flight. NPO Lavotchkin is responsible for the launch preparation and flight operations of the Fregat orbital vehicle.

Arianespace puts more than a thousand satellites into orbit with flight ST35

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