By Jackie Wattles and Jennifer Korn, CNN 3/21/2022
SpaceX has a new deal to launch internet-beaming satellites for its chief competitor in the satellite business — British company OneWeb.
The somewhat awkward pairing, announced by OneWeb on Monday, comes after Russia's invasion of Ukraine effectively brought a halt to Russian launches of commercial Western satellites. A launch deal between OneWeb and Russia that was brokered through an intermediary fell through, with the Russian space agency essentially holding the company's satellites hostage, as they sat loaded on board a Russian Soyuz rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The new deal puts SpaceX, the world's most prolific commercial launch provider, in the unique position of launching satellites that could compete with its own Starlink satellites in the space-based internet business. OneWeb is, however, currently marketing its services to businesses rather than directly to consumers, as SpaceX does with Starlink.
OneWeb, which is partially owned by the British government, was set to launch a batch of 36 internet satellites in early March. But Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Roscosmos and a former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia with a flair for inflammatory rhetoric, then announced Russia would refuse to go ahead with what should be a routine launch in response to UK sanctions on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.
More:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/21/tech/spacex-oneweb-launch-agreement-russia-scn/index.html
