10 ms·

OneWeb files for bankruptcy

176 points by z3t4 7y ago

tiernano 7y ago
Wonder if space x would buy them... wonder how much of a difference between their current satellites and one webs there is...
- londons_explore 7y ago
  Oneweb's satellites are 'bent pipes', which means they don't decode/route the data. They act like a mirror just reflecting signals back. That used to be a great design when satellites were expected to last 30 years, and the 'bent pipe' design meant data compression, encoding, error correction and modulation could be upgraded without changing the satellite hardware. In today's world where satellites are lower, cheaper and only last ~5 years, it makes more sense for the satellite to be able to decode and route data, which gives it a significant capacity boost for the same power and spectrum usage (since you aren't amplifying and forwarding noise). Phased arrays with hundreds or thousands of beams also don't work well with the bent pipe architecture, since cross-talk between streams is hard to reduce.
  - tyingq 7y ago
    Is there a niche where they can survive? Iridium (IRDM) is still afloat, though with a lot more coverage and a solid niche.
    - greglindahl 7y ago
      Iridium launched a complete, working constellation before going bankrupt.
      - lmm 7y ago
        And came very close to deorbiting it all in the bankruptcy.
  - blackhaz 7y ago
    I wonder what happens with the satellites. Are they just expected to decay?
    - hylaride 7y ago
      They eventually re-enter the atmosphere and burn up, especially if they’re low orbit.
      - greglindahl 7y ago
        They aren't in a low orbit, the decay time is a lot more than 25 years.
        hylaride 7y ago
        Usually at the end of their life, the owners intentional change their orbit to burn them up. I’m not sure about OneWeb, but most of the new satellite internet companies are/were planning low orbit satellites to keep latency down.
        greglindahl 7y ago
        A "low" (LEO) orbit doesn't necessarily mean that satellites burn up within 25 years if they fail and are unable to do a deorbit burn. Of the proposed constellations, the lowest orbit so far is Starlink. OneWeb is much higher but supposedly the satellites are more guaranteed to be reliable.
    - mrfusion 7y ago
      I’m almost positive they have the means to De orbit them if they decide to.
      - z3t4 7y ago
        Would be cool if they would let radio amateurs use them, rather then destroying. Could probably find many use cases, if not for learning and experimentation. Maybe use if for Internet peering.
  - thecybernerd 7y ago
    Would SpaceX find value in their spectrum holdings?
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  I think the most likely candidate is Amazon's Project Kuiper who do not yet have the spectrum they need. OneWeb's spectrum will be very valuable to Amazon.
synctext 7y ago
Key bits; almost ready; then Corona came: "To date, the Company has successfully launched 74 satellites as part of its constellation, secured valuable global spectrum, begun development on a range of user terminals for a variety of customer markets, has half of its 44 ground stations completed or in development, and performed successful demonstrations of its system with broadband speeds in excess of 400 Mbps and latency of 32 ms."
- londons_explore 7y ago
  74 out of 648 required for full service... They're 10% complete... And they are launching on Soyuz, which isn't exactly cheap when they need to do another 16 launches...
  - redis_mlc 7y ago
    > they are launching on Soyuz, which isn't exactly cheap Exactly. Musk started making rockets when Russia wouldn't sell them on reasonable terms. The closer OneWeb got to finishing their constellation, the higher the bids would've been.
    - greglindahl 7y ago
      OneWeb bought 21 Soyuz launches at once, which is enough for the initial constellation.
      - redis_mlc 7y ago
        That was smart, wonder if they can get a refund. :)
        greglindahl 7y ago
        When you buy a rocket launch, usually there are progress payments as the rocket is built. And if you stop paying, you forfeit the payment. So likely there's nothing to be refunded... and the rocket maker is stuck with 18 partially-assembled rockets. Which is an entire year of launches for Soyuz.
redis_mlc 7y ago
You would have thought that Iridium would have been a cautionary tale. The first company went bk in 1999, losing $6 billion, and it could only make money when the buyer bought it for $35 million and didn't have to pay for the capital assets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_Communications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_Communications
- jessriedel 7y ago
  Except Iridium recently launched an entire new generation of satellites to replace their old one, and it is expected to be profitable. Likewise, lots of people expect SpaceX to make a killing on Starlink. There were good reasons to be skeptical of OneWeb, but "consumer satellite communication companies have gone bankrupt before" is not one of them.
  - redis_mlc 7y ago
    Nonsense, fanboi. The only reason SpaceX is going into the satellite business is because they have 5,000 employees sitting around doing nothing. The "launch business for paying clients" just isn't big enough.
    - aquadrop 7y ago
      And? If they can simultaneously create demand for the launches and create global internet service business, what's the problem?
  - RivieraKid 7y ago
    > lots of people expect SpaceX to make a killing on Starlink What lots of people expect is kind of irrelevant... OneWeb going bankrupt suggests that profit margins will be low at best, negative at worst. Cheaper launch cost is not enough to change the business from to non-viable to hugely profitable. Who will be the customers of Starlink? Internet is a commodity for the average person, you can't make money in that market. This leaves special cases such as abandoned areas, airlines, ships, but that market is much smaller and it's unclear whether it can feed the massive capital costs of Starlink: launches, satellites, ground stations. Edit: Providing service to ships in the ocean could be a problem, because of the lack of ground stations.
shantara 7y ago
I don't think it's exactly fair of them to blame "financial impact and market turbulence related to the spread of COVID-19" for their bankruptcy. The history of space industry is full of companies that ran out of money when attempting to launch massive satellite constellations. And let's be frank, an attempt to out-compete SpaceX on mass satellite production and cheap launches was doomed to fail.
- kilroy123 7y ago
  Well I always thought they were insane not utilizing SpaceX for launching and bringing down costs. Iridium used SpaceX very successfully to get their entire new constellation up.
  - jagged-chisel 7y ago
    I was initially confused because I missed “new” - Iridium’s new constellation is Iridium NEXT.
  - m4rtink 7y ago
    IIRC from an article that I read, there has been some personal antipathy between one of the OneWeb founders and SpaceX/Elon, that made them avoid SpaceX & go for much more expensive & less flexible "conventional" launch providers.
    - Robotbeat 7y ago
      SpaceX and OneWeb were actually once partners. OneWeb didn't like SpaceX's more ambitious plans (or SpaceX wasn't satisfied with OneWeb's less ambitious plans), so they split.
- phkahler 7y ago
  >> The history of space industry is full of companies that ran out of money when attempting to launch massive satellite constellations. As Elon recently said, they have ALL gone under. The goal of Starlink is to not go bankrupt. Well, it's actually to fund the Mars mission, but a first step is to not go bankrupt like everyone else did.
chtitux 7y ago
Ariane 6 first flight was planned to bring OneWeb satellites in space. If they can't launch them, I wonder what will be the payload of the first Ariane 6.
- nickik 7y ago
  To be honest I really can't see what exactly the Ariane 6 does better then Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy. I can not see how it has any chance in a commercial market, they will have to get government launches, but there are not enough. Ariane 6 was a response to Falcon 9 first generation, and they designed it to compete with a Falcon 9 from 4 years ago, Falcon 9 is a different beast now. Even launching 2 huge satellites is not gone work because there are fewer of those launches, and Falcon Heavy is getting a bigger fairing that could do that too.
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    Ariane 6 only makes sense if you view launch capability as a matter of national security.
    - nickik 7y ago
      Given that most nations in Europe are happy to launch on US rockets (as the Germans did), that really basically means the national security of France. Seems to me its more of a jobs program that claims 'national security' as a reason.
      - fragmede 7y ago
        A "jobs program" that would have kept (more) manufacturing capacity of surgical masks in-country seems like it would have been a very good thing right now.
misterCrowley 7y ago
Elon Musk'ed!
drmpeg 7y ago
Spacex could be in trouble too. http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2020/03/21/why-spacex-desperately-needs-a-government-bailout/ http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2020/03/21/why-spacex-desperat...
- mrfusion 7y ago
  Don’t spread rumors. This was thoroughly debunked on r/Spacex. https://pay.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/fmp7sv/why_spacex_desperately_needs_a_government_bailout/ https://pay.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/fmp7sv/why_spacex_d...
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    Yes, that's far from a credible source. However SpaceX's latest round (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/spacex-raising-500-million-in-new-funding-for-elon-musks-company.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/spacex-raising-500-million-i...) has not yet closed and undoubtedly due to the situation some of the investors in that round are getting itchy feet. I have no doubt that SpaceX can raise (I'd invest), but that $36B valuation might be in trouble.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- jesseb 7y ago
  NASA just yesterday selected SpaceX for a new contract regarding the Lunar Gateway, so they have at least some confidence SpaceX is sticking around. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-artemis-contract-for-gateway-logistics-services https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-artemis-contr...
Ice_cream_suit 7y ago
Another SoftBank fiasco.
MegaDeKay 7y ago
More information at this link from the Financial Times. There are only a few dozen people left working their now. https://amp-ft-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.ft.com/content/8695c459-effd-4b54-8d96-69d8e614f6b4 https://amp-ft-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.ft.com/content...
- encom 7y ago
  That link is an abomination while also being paywalled. The proper link is this: https://www.ft.com/content/8695c459-effd-4b54-8d96-69d8e614f6b4 https://www.ft.com/content/8695c459-effd-4b54-8d96-69d8e614f... ...but also paywalled. This one is not: https://archive.ph/OynEo https://archive.ph/OynEo
JackPoach 7y ago
I think this is bad news for SpaceX as well. Investors are going to be very reluctant to give more money to Musk.
- squarefoot 7y ago
  These days most investors would probably look only at developments in the medical field; Covid19 is affecting just about every business everywhere.
  - Veen 7y ago
    Telecoms businesses are doing quite well too.
- nickik 7y ago
  Their only real competition is out of the way and they will dominate that market for many years, seems to me that would the opposite effect.
erwinh 7y ago
So this will be the final OneWeb constellation: https://space-search.io/?search=OneWeb https://space-search.io/?search=OneWeb (shamelessly plugging my own website here) Such a shame about OneWeb though, met some of them at a conference in Spain just a month ago, where the elephant in the room was StarLink already.
- tobiastobias 7y ago
  How cool! I have never seen space/satellites so intuitively explained. 2 ideas: Can you include spaceships or the ISS? As well it would be cool to see the satellites actually flying in time-lapse. Keep up the good work - thanks for sharing :-)
  - erwinh 7y ago
    Thanks! Time-lapse & animation is on the to-do list :) Depends a little bit on the classifications of the spaceships but these are included in the data. I'm still working on (even) more intuitive labeling & categorisation systems but for example ISS can currently be found by the cospar ID for the first element launched: https://space-search.io/?search=cospar%2098067A https://space-search.io/?search=cospar%2098067A Ease of use is my primary focus so feels good to hear that it's recognised and appreciated!
- rossmohax 7y ago
  How do they deploy evenly spaced sattelites on the same orbit?
  - erwinh 7y ago
    You can launch them all at once on a sort of dispenser system. Then after they are separated they are on the exact same orbit. By increasing or decreasing that orbit height by just a tiny bit they will speed up or down and start to disperse. Over multiple days/weeks they will start to disperse across that orbit. Once they are all spaced to the position where they want them they move up/down again to the exact orbit to maintain position. Maybe later in the year I'll make an animation about it, because initially it is a bit counter intuitive but once you get it it makes a lot of sense :)
sm4rk0 7y ago
TL;DR "Since the beginning of the year, OneWeb had been engaged in advanced negotiations regarding investment that would fully fund the Company through its deployment and commercial launch. While the Company was close to obtaining financing, the process did not progress because of the financial impact and market turbulence related to the spread of COVID-19."
InTheArena 7y ago
This is also a hammer blow to Soyuz and the European launchers. Payloads are becoming very scarce.
- greglindahl 7y ago
  I wonder what the Soyuz folks are going to do with 18 half-paid-for, partially-built rockets?
cs702 7y ago
I've met some of the senior executives at OneWeb, and think highly of them. My understanding is that from day one they were under pressure from Softbank and other backers to spend the initial capital aggressively -- to secure spectrum as quickly as possible, build out ground stations as quickly as possible, build out global operations as quickly as possible, and start launching satellites as quickly as possible -- with the implicit assumption that there would be additional capital available to get the company to launch. The team, to its credit, accomplished pretty much everything they set out to do on an accelerated schedule, but then, when they needed additional capital to finish the build-out and launch... the additional capital they had been counting on failed to materialize on reasonable terms. Many people working at OneWeb surely feel shortchanged.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > My understanding is that from day one they were under pressure from Softbank and other backers to spend the initial capital aggressively Totally agree. This isn’t a Covid-19 story. It’s another SoftBank story. The SoftBank-fuelled impatience led to strategic blunders including premature spectrum accumulation, vendor lock-in with Airbus, launch services lock-in with legacy providers and over hiring.
ThinkBeat 7y ago
So who will buy their assets for pennies on the dollar and keep going?
- greglindahl 7y ago
  The asset isn't a working constellation, it's one which is allegedly halfway there. History says that the constellations that successfully emerged from bankruptcy were the ones that had proof that they worked.

176 points by z3t4 7y ago

Wonder if space x would buy them... wonder how much of a difference between their current satellites and one webs there is...

londons_explore 7y ago
Oneweb's satellites are 'bent pipes', which means they don't decode/route the data. They act like a mirror just reflecting signals back. That used to be a great design when satellites were expected to last 30 years, and the 'bent pipe' design meant data compression, encoding, error correction and modulation could be upgraded without changing the satellite hardware. In today's world where satellites are lower, cheaper and only last ~5 years, it makes more sense for the satellite to be able to decode and route data, which gives it a significant capacity boost for the same power and spectrum usage (since you aren't amplifying and forwarding noise). Phased arrays with hundreds or thousands of beams also don't work well with the bent pipe architecture, since cross-talk between streams is hard to reduce.
- tyingq 7y ago
  Is there a niche where they can survive? Iridium (IRDM) is still afloat, though with a lot more coverage and a solid niche.
  - greglindahl 7y ago
    Iridium launched a complete, working constellation before going bankrupt.
    - lmm 7y ago
      And came very close to deorbiting it all in the bankruptcy.
- blackhaz 7y ago
  I wonder what happens with the satellites. Are they just expected to decay?
  - hylaride 7y ago
    They eventually re-enter the atmosphere and burn up, especially if they’re low orbit.
    - greglindahl 7y ago
      They aren't in a low orbit, the decay time is a lot more than 25 years.
      - hylaride 7y ago
        Usually at the end of their life, the owners intentional change their orbit to burn them up. I’m not sure about OneWeb, but most of the new satellite internet companies are/were planning low orbit satellites to keep latency down.
        greglindahl 7y ago
        A "low" (LEO) orbit doesn't necessarily mean that satellites burn up within 25 years if they fail and are unable to do a deorbit burn. Of the proposed constellations, the lowest orbit so far is Starlink. OneWeb is much higher but supposedly the satellites are more guaranteed to be reliable.
  - mrfusion 7y ago
    I’m almost positive they have the means to De orbit them if they decide to.
    - z3t4 7y ago
      Would be cool if they would let radio amateurs use them, rather then destroying. Could probably find many use cases, if not for learning and experimentation. Maybe use if for Internet peering.
- thecybernerd 7y ago
  Would SpaceX find value in their spectrum holdings?
bryanlarsen 7y ago
I think the most likely candidate is Amazon's Project Kuiper who do not yet have the spectrum they need. OneWeb's spectrum will be very valuable to Amazon.

synctext 7y ago

Key bits; almost ready; then Corona came: "To date, the Company has successfully launched 74 satellites as part of its constellation, secured valuable global spectrum, begun development on a range of user terminals for a variety of customer markets, has half of its 44 ground stations completed or in development, and performed successful demonstrations of its system with broadband speeds in excess of 400 Mbps and latency of 32 ms."

londons_explore 7y ago
74 out of 648 required for full service... They're 10% complete... And they are launching on Soyuz, which isn't exactly cheap when they need to do another 16 launches...
- redis_mlc 7y ago
  > they are launching on Soyuz, which isn't exactly cheap Exactly. Musk started making rockets when Russia wouldn't sell them on reasonable terms. The closer OneWeb got to finishing their constellation, the higher the bids would've been.
  - greglindahl 7y ago
    OneWeb bought 21 Soyuz launches at once, which is enough for the initial constellation.
    - redis_mlc 7y ago
      That was smart, wonder if they can get a refund. :)
      - greglindahl 7y ago
        When you buy a rocket launch, usually there are progress payments as the rocket is built. And if you stop paying, you forfeit the payment. So likely there's nothing to be refunded... and the rocket maker is stuck with 18 partially-assembled rockets. Which is an entire year of launches for Soyuz.

redis_mlc 7y ago

You would have thought that Iridium would have been a cautionary tale. The first company went bk in 1999, losing $6 billion, and it could only make money when the buyer bought it for $35 million and didn't have to pay for the capital assets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_Communications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_Communications

jessriedel 7y ago
Except Iridium recently launched an entire new generation of satellites to replace their old one, and it is expected to be profitable. Likewise, lots of people expect SpaceX to make a killing on Starlink. There were good reasons to be skeptical of OneWeb, but "consumer satellite communication companies have gone bankrupt before" is not one of them.
- redis_mlc 7y ago
  Nonsense, fanboi. The only reason SpaceX is going into the satellite business is because they have 5,000 employees sitting around doing nothing. The "launch business for paying clients" just isn't big enough.
  - aquadrop 7y ago
    And? If they can simultaneously create demand for the launches and create global internet service business, what's the problem?
- RivieraKid 7y ago
  > lots of people expect SpaceX to make a killing on Starlink What lots of people expect is kind of irrelevant... OneWeb going bankrupt suggests that profit margins will be low at best, negative at worst. Cheaper launch cost is not enough to change the business from to non-viable to hugely profitable. Who will be the customers of Starlink? Internet is a commodity for the average person, you can't make money in that market. This leaves special cases such as abandoned areas, airlines, ships, but that market is much smaller and it's unclear whether it can feed the massive capital costs of Starlink: launches, satellites, ground stations. Edit: Providing service to ships in the ocean could be a problem, because of the lack of ground stations.

shantara 7y ago

I don't think it's exactly fair of them to blame "financial impact and market turbulence related to the spread of COVID-19" for their bankruptcy. The history of space industry is full of companies that ran out of money when attempting to launch massive satellite constellations. And let's be frank, an attempt to out-compete SpaceX on mass satellite production and cheap launches was doomed to fail.

kilroy123 7y ago
Well I always thought they were insane not utilizing SpaceX for launching and bringing down costs. Iridium used SpaceX very successfully to get their entire new constellation up.
- jagged-chisel 7y ago
  I was initially confused because I missed “new” - Iridium’s new constellation is Iridium NEXT.
- m4rtink 7y ago
  IIRC from an article that I read, there has been some personal antipathy between one of the OneWeb founders and SpaceX/Elon, that made them avoid SpaceX & go for much more expensive & less flexible "conventional" launch providers.
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    SpaceX and OneWeb were actually once partners. OneWeb didn't like SpaceX's more ambitious plans (or SpaceX wasn't satisfied with OneWeb's less ambitious plans), so they split.
phkahler 7y ago
>> The history of space industry is full of companies that ran out of money when attempting to launch massive satellite constellations. As Elon recently said, they have ALL gone under. The goal of Starlink is to not go bankrupt. Well, it's actually to fund the Mars mission, but a first step is to not go bankrupt like everyone else did.

chtitux 7y ago

Ariane 6 first flight was planned to bring OneWeb satellites in space. If they can't launch them, I wonder what will be the payload of the first Ariane 6.

nickik 7y ago
To be honest I really can't see what exactly the Ariane 6 does better then Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy. I can not see how it has any chance in a commercial market, they will have to get government launches, but there are not enough. Ariane 6 was a response to Falcon 9 first generation, and they designed it to compete with a Falcon 9 from 4 years ago, Falcon 9 is a different beast now. Even launching 2 huge satellites is not gone work because there are fewer of those launches, and Falcon Heavy is getting a bigger fairing that could do that too.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  Ariane 6 only makes sense if you view launch capability as a matter of national security.
  - nickik 7y ago
    Given that most nations in Europe are happy to launch on US rockets (as the Germans did), that really basically means the national security of France. Seems to me its more of a jobs program that claims 'national security' as a reason.
    - fragmede 7y ago
      A "jobs program" that would have kept (more) manufacturing capacity of surgical masks in-country seems like it would have been a very good thing right now.

misterCrowley 7y ago

Elon Musk'ed!

drmpeg 7y ago

Spacex could be in trouble too. http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2020/03/21/why-spacex-desperately-needs-a-government-bailout/ http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2020/03/21/why-spacex-desperat...

mrfusion 7y ago
Don’t spread rumors. This was thoroughly debunked on r/Spacex. https://pay.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/fmp7sv/why_spacex_desperately_needs_a_government_bailout/ https://pay.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/fmp7sv/why_spacex_d...
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  Yes, that's far from a credible source. However SpaceX's latest round (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/spacex-raising-500-million-in-new-funding-for-elon-musks-company.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/spacex-raising-500-million-i...) has not yet closed and undoubtedly due to the situation some of the investors in that round are getting itchy feet. I have no doubt that SpaceX can raise (I'd invest), but that $36B valuation might be in trouble.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
jesseb 7y ago
NASA just yesterday selected SpaceX for a new contract regarding the Lunar Gateway, so they have at least some confidence SpaceX is sticking around. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-artemis-contract-for-gateway-logistics-services https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-artemis-contr...

Ice_cream_suit 7y ago

Another SoftBank fiasco.

MegaDeKay 7y ago

More information at this link from the Financial Times. There are only a few dozen people left working their now. https://amp-ft-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.ft.com/content/8695c459-effd-4b54-8d96-69d8e614f6b4 https://amp-ft-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.ft.com/content...

encom 7y ago
That link is an abomination while also being paywalled. The proper link is this: https://www.ft.com/content/8695c459-effd-4b54-8d96-69d8e614f6b4 https://www.ft.com/content/8695c459-effd-4b54-8d96-69d8e614f... ...but also paywalled. This one is not: https://archive.ph/OynEo https://archive.ph/OynEo

JackPoach 7y ago

I think this is bad news for SpaceX as well. Investors are going to be very reluctant to give more money to Musk.

squarefoot 7y ago
These days most investors would probably look only at developments in the medical field; Covid19 is affecting just about every business everywhere.
- Veen 7y ago
  Telecoms businesses are doing quite well too.
nickik 7y ago
Their only real competition is out of the way and they will dominate that market for many years, seems to me that would the opposite effect.

erwinh 7y ago

So this will be the final OneWeb constellation: https://space-search.io/?search=OneWeb https://space-search.io/?search=OneWeb (shamelessly plugging my own website here) Such a shame about OneWeb though, met some of them at a conference in Spain just a month ago, where the elephant in the room was StarLink already.

tobiastobias 7y ago
How cool! I have never seen space/satellites so intuitively explained. 2 ideas: Can you include spaceships or the ISS? As well it would be cool to see the satellites actually flying in time-lapse. Keep up the good work - thanks for sharing :-)
- erwinh 7y ago
  Thanks! Time-lapse & animation is on the to-do list :) Depends a little bit on the classifications of the spaceships but these are included in the data. I'm still working on (even) more intuitive labeling & categorisation systems but for example ISS can currently be found by the cospar ID for the first element launched: https://space-search.io/?search=cospar%2098067A https://space-search.io/?search=cospar%2098067A Ease of use is my primary focus so feels good to hear that it's recognised and appreciated!
rossmohax 7y ago
How do they deploy evenly spaced sattelites on the same orbit?
- erwinh 7y ago
  You can launch them all at once on a sort of dispenser system. Then after they are separated they are on the exact same orbit. By increasing or decreasing that orbit height by just a tiny bit they will speed up or down and start to disperse. Over multiple days/weeks they will start to disperse across that orbit. Once they are all spaced to the position where they want them they move up/down again to the exact orbit to maintain position. Maybe later in the year I'll make an animation about it, because initially it is a bit counter intuitive but once you get it it makes a lot of sense :)

sm4rk0 7y ago

TL;DR "Since the beginning of the year, OneWeb had been engaged in advanced negotiations regarding investment that would fully fund the Company through its deployment and commercial launch. While the Company was close to obtaining financing, the process did not progress because of the financial impact and market turbulence related to the spread of COVID-19."

InTheArena 7y ago

This is also a hammer blow to Soyuz and the European launchers. Payloads are becoming very scarce.

greglindahl 7y ago
I wonder what the Soyuz folks are going to do with 18 half-paid-for, partially-built rockets?

cs702 7y ago

I've met some of the senior executives at OneWeb, and think highly of them. My understanding is that from day one they were under pressure from Softbank and other backers to spend the initial capital aggressively -- to secure spectrum as quickly as possible, build out ground stations as quickly as possible, build out global operations as quickly as possible, and start launching satellites as quickly as possible -- with the implicit assumption that there would be additional capital available to get the company to launch. The team, to its credit, accomplished pretty much everything they set out to do on an accelerated schedule, but then, when they needed additional capital to finish the build-out and launch... the additional capital they had been counting on failed to materialize on reasonable terms. Many people working at OneWeb surely feel shortchanged.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> My understanding is that from day one they were under pressure from Softbank and other backers to spend the initial capital aggressively Totally agree. This isn’t a Covid-19 story. It’s another SoftBank story. The SoftBank-fuelled impatience led to strategic blunders including premature spectrum accumulation, vendor lock-in with Airbus, launch services lock-in with legacy providers and over hiring.

ThinkBeat 7y ago

So who will buy their assets for pennies on the dollar and keep going?

greglindahl 7y ago
The asset isn't a working constellation, it's one which is allegedly halfway there. History says that the constellations that successfully emerged from bankruptcy were the ones that had proof that they worked.