6 ms·

OneWeb suspends all launches from Baikonur

42 points by andreasley 5y ago

andreasley 5y ago
Previously: Russia places extraordinary demands on OneWeb prior to satellite launch [1] [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/03/russia-places-extraordinary-demands-on-oneweb-prior-to-satellite-launch/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/03/russia-places-extrao...
- karmakaze 5y ago
  Adding 'satellite' context for 'launches' helps disambiguate if not familiar with what OneWeb does.
neverminder 5y ago
So OneWeb is dead. Again. Unless of course they launch with SpaceX, which would be ironic. I think SpaceX would agree though, because OneWeb is never gonna be a serious competitor to Starlink anyway.
- gameswithgo 5y ago
  I imagine SpaceX would launch enthusiastically. Sad to see roscosmos obliterate itself.
- tjpnz 5y ago
  What about launching with Ariane Space?
  - gameswithgo 5y ago
    The article states they have no capacity available
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Thervicarl 5y ago
    OneWeb is/was lanuching with Arianespace. But Arianespace basically does not have any rocket anymore. A few Ariane 5 left with an uncertain Ariane 6 ramp-up, no more Soyuz, an probably very few complete Vega until Ukraine is back to work.
  - paranoidrobot 5y ago
    From the Arstechnica article posted above: > Europe has no spare launch capacity, with all of its remaining Ariane 5 launches spoken for, and the Ariane 6 rocket is probably at least two years away from having operational capacity.
    - elkos 5y ago
      Let's see, we are working on a payload, onboard upper stage of the 1st Ariane6 launch.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    Launching with China is more likely, as they can ramp up capacity in two years for far less money and timeline risk. The Indians, too, could theoretically reach the orbits that OneWeb needs but with far fewer sats on each PSLV. OneWeb is partially owned by an Indian firm, so though it would be more expensive there could be other advantages. More likely than either is to put the OneWeb birds on a Falcon 9.
- Thervicarl 5y ago
  There was bad blood between Elon Musk and Greg Wyler the messianic swindler founder of OneWeb. But Greg Wyler is long gone to find new credulous investors. And his main investor support in OneWeb, Masayoshi Son of Softbank, has lost most of its stake OneWeb after the Chapter 11 bankruptcy. So who knows ? Besides that, it is hard to get a balanced view of the question because SpaceX zealots paint a rosy picture of the benevolence of the company toward what is still the only constellation that may look like a competitor to Starlink (even if it is a weak competitor). Also, most of the news reports focus on OneWeb buying Soyuz Russian rockets. But the reality is that OneWeb bought launches from Arianespace that buys Soyuz rockets / Baikonour access through its subsidiary Starsem co-owned with Russia. So Arianespace/ArianeGroup may be on the hook for the breach of contract and possibly loss of 36 satellites. And they are in deep trouble with the planned end of Ariane 5, no more Soyuz, Vega with no Ukranian upper stage and an uncertain progress of Ariane 6. Disclosure: I have been involved in the OneWeb project but not a OneWeb employee.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    Bad blood between Elon and a direct competitor. I can't imagine it. Do you know what the contract says. Is Arianespace required to launch them? My understanding as an outsider is you buy specific launch vehicles. Do you have any idea what the legal implication of a move like that is?
    - Thervicarl 5y ago
      Not a competitor, a former partner. Early in the OneWeb project Greg Wyler was coming with his O3B background and positioning himself as the mastermind for the constellation aspects (satellite production and operation) with Elon Musk and SpaceX handling the launches. Then Elon started questioning Greg Wyler decisions (which turned out to be a correct assessment) and OneWeb went its own way with Arianespace assuming SpaceX would never invest seriously and catch-up for the design and mass production of satellites. History has proven them wrong. For Arianespace, no idea. It will probably keep a number of lawyers busy for the coming years.
      - 5y ago
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  I think SpaceX has no choice but to agree. They're firmly in a monopoly position right now, and refusing would be an abuse of that monopoly. Remember that monopolies are legal as long as they are fairly attained and aren't abused.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  One of the reasons for the Starlink project was to keep SpaceX busy with productive launches. OneWeb launches help further that goal, even if they were able to pull away a small percentage of Starlink's business. I imagine they'd jump on the opportunity eagerly.
Reason077 5y ago
Speaking of space, what happens with the ISS? Can the other partners work together to boot out Russian participation? Is that even technically feasible?
- neverminder 5y ago
  Elon Musk already said SpaceX can easily handle the logistics and I think it's obvious. Political and economical side however is not so clear. But also if and when Starship launches, it will have pressurized volume of the entire ISS, so why just build ISS 2.0?
  - iso1631 5y ago
    > just build ISS 2.0? With blackjack and hookers
    - voxadam 5y ago
      Somewhere Putin can bite our shiny metal space station.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    There is already a Commercial Station program going on from NASA and they didn't select Starship derived station. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-companies-to-develop-commercial-destinations-in-space/ https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-companies-to...
    - neverminder 5y ago
      "The companies that received awards are: Blue Origin". So Blue Origin is their choice of launcher then? Because Blue Origin is notorious for demanding awards and delivering exactly jack shit in return.
      - panick21_ 5y ago
        The Core Modules will have to be lifted on New Glenn (or Starship). This is the first major award Blue Origin actually got, and it will likely be underfunded for years. So lets see, they have a lot to prove.
panick21_ 5y ago
OneWeb has a real, real problem now. They are burning cash, not making any money, and are not anywhere close to commercial service. Moving to a different launch vehicle right now is horrible for them because quite simply there are not any, with exception of maybe SpaceX. That would directly fund your competitor who is already beating you. The reason is that because of what SpaceX achieved around 2014-2015 the launch industry is moving into its next generation. However right now we are in a transition phase. Lets go threw all rockets of any size. - Russia Proton -> Destroyed commercially by SpaceX, unreliable, production has ended. - Ariane 5 -> Destroyed commercially by SpaceX, sold out, production ended - ULA Delta 4/Delta 4 Heavy -> Destroyed in government by SpaceX, sold out, production ended - ULA Atlas 5 -> Sold out to Amazon and production ended. - ULA Vulcan -> Not flown, engine delayed, flights booked for the next couple years at least even if it flies this year (unlikely). However, overall maybe the most likely as they actually have production capacity for the rocket itself at least. The engines are a different question. - Japan H3 -> Delayed, booked for years, low launch rate - Relativity Space Terran R -> NET 2025 at best (and then low launch rate for the early years) - Rocket Lab Neutron -> NET 2025 at best (and then low launch rate for the early years) - New Glenn -> NET mid-2023 and given engine production, real commercial launches at real, who knows. New Glenn is very low launch rate and reliant on them perfecting re-usability immediately. - Ariane 6 -> ESA/Europe need to shift their own Soyuz launches to Ariane 6, likely no commercial availability for many years. - India GSLV Mark III -> Very, very low launch rate and fully booked years in advanced for Indian missions. I have less information about China but I have heard that LM5 is also basically done and they generally have a lot of their own launches. Unlikely a British/Indian rocket would use China. SpaceX Falcon 9 of course also has a huge number of flight, likely more then all the above combined. But its at least possible that they would sell you a real block of launches that would allow you to finish your constellation in the somewhere in 2023-2024. Around 2027 there will be lots of very large rockets looking for payloads to hope to manage their flight rates. But right now, you are out of luck. Some people on Twitter suggest launchers like Astra, RocketLab, Firefly and so on. This is likely not commercially viable. Launching these sats 1-4 at a time would likely be way to expensive. Not to mention that it would basically overload the small launch market far more then it could handle. So, OneWeb went bankrupt once. Now they are backed by gigantic governments and quasi-government in Britain and India. They better hope those people don't know about the Sunk-Cost fallacy. OneWeb only real advantage was being first to market. Technologically both Starlink and Project Kuiper are on a totally different level already. And I don't think OneWeb was doing massive R&D to compete in the tech race during their hard time. It hard enough to get production going for their current sats.

42 points by andreasley 5y ago

Previously: Russia places extraordinary demands on OneWeb prior to satellite launch [1] [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/03/russia-places-extraordinary-demands-on-oneweb-prior-to-satellite-launch/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/03/russia-places-extrao...

karmakaze 5y ago
Adding 'satellite' context for 'launches' helps disambiguate if not familiar with what OneWeb does.

neverminder 5y ago

So OneWeb is dead. Again. Unless of course they launch with SpaceX, which would be ironic. I think SpaceX would agree though, because OneWeb is never gonna be a serious competitor to Starlink anyway.

gameswithgo 5y ago
I imagine SpaceX would launch enthusiastically. Sad to see roscosmos obliterate itself.
tjpnz 5y ago
What about launching with Ariane Space?
- gameswithgo 5y ago
  The article states they have no capacity available
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Thervicarl 5y ago
  OneWeb is/was lanuching with Arianespace. But Arianespace basically does not have any rocket anymore. A few Ariane 5 left with an uncertain Ariane 6 ramp-up, no more Soyuz, an probably very few complete Vega until Ukraine is back to work.
- paranoidrobot 5y ago
  From the Arstechnica article posted above: > Europe has no spare launch capacity, with all of its remaining Ariane 5 launches spoken for, and the Ariane 6 rocket is probably at least two years away from having operational capacity.
  - elkos 5y ago
    Let's see, we are working on a payload, onboard upper stage of the 1st Ariane6 launch.
- dotancohen 5y ago
  Launching with China is more likely, as they can ramp up capacity in two years for far less money and timeline risk. The Indians, too, could theoretically reach the orbits that OneWeb needs but with far fewer sats on each PSLV. OneWeb is partially owned by an Indian firm, so though it would be more expensive there could be other advantages. More likely than either is to put the OneWeb birds on a Falcon 9.
Thervicarl 5y ago
There was bad blood between Elon Musk and Greg Wyler the messianic swindler founder of OneWeb. But Greg Wyler is long gone to find new credulous investors. And his main investor support in OneWeb, Masayoshi Son of Softbank, has lost most of its stake OneWeb after the Chapter 11 bankruptcy. So who knows ? Besides that, it is hard to get a balanced view of the question because SpaceX zealots paint a rosy picture of the benevolence of the company toward what is still the only constellation that may look like a competitor to Starlink (even if it is a weak competitor). Also, most of the news reports focus on OneWeb buying Soyuz Russian rockets. But the reality is that OneWeb bought launches from Arianespace that buys Soyuz rockets / Baikonour access through its subsidiary Starsem co-owned with Russia. So Arianespace/ArianeGroup may be on the hook for the breach of contract and possibly loss of 36 satellites. And they are in deep trouble with the planned end of Ariane 5, no more Soyuz, Vega with no Ukranian upper stage and an uncertain progress of Ariane 6. Disclosure: I have been involved in the OneWeb project but not a OneWeb employee.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Bad blood between Elon and a direct competitor. I can't imagine it. Do you know what the contract says. Is Arianespace required to launch them? My understanding as an outsider is you buy specific launch vehicles. Do you have any idea what the legal implication of a move like that is?
  - Thervicarl 5y ago
    Not a competitor, a former partner. Early in the OneWeb project Greg Wyler was coming with his O3B background and positioning himself as the mastermind for the constellation aspects (satellite production and operation) with Elon Musk and SpaceX handling the launches. Then Elon started questioning Greg Wyler decisions (which turned out to be a correct assessment) and OneWeb went its own way with Arianespace assuming SpaceX would never invest seriously and catch-up for the design and mass production of satellites. History has proven them wrong. For Arianespace, no idea. It will probably keep a number of lawyers busy for the coming years.
    - 5y ago
bryanlarsen 5y ago
I think SpaceX has no choice but to agree. They're firmly in a monopoly position right now, and refusing would be an abuse of that monopoly. Remember that monopolies are legal as long as they are fairly attained and aren't abused.
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
One of the reasons for the Starlink project was to keep SpaceX busy with productive launches. OneWeb launches help further that goal, even if they were able to pull away a small percentage of Starlink's business. I imagine they'd jump on the opportunity eagerly.

Reason077 5y ago

Speaking of space, what happens with the ISS? Can the other partners work together to boot out Russian participation? Is that even technically feasible?

neverminder 5y ago
Elon Musk already said SpaceX can easily handle the logistics and I think it's obvious. Political and economical side however is not so clear. But also if and when Starship launches, it will have pressurized volume of the entire ISS, so why just build ISS 2.0?
- iso1631 5y ago
  > just build ISS 2.0? With blackjack and hookers
  - voxadam 5y ago
    Somewhere Putin can bite our shiny metal space station.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  There is already a Commercial Station program going on from NASA and they didn't select Starship derived station. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-companies-to-develop-commercial-destinations-in-space/ https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-companies-to...
  - neverminder 5y ago
    "The companies that received awards are: Blue Origin". So Blue Origin is their choice of launcher then? Because Blue Origin is notorious for demanding awards and delivering exactly jack shit in return.
    - panick21_ 5y ago
      The Core Modules will have to be lifted on New Glenn (or Starship). This is the first major award Blue Origin actually got, and it will likely be underfunded for years. So lets see, they have a lot to prove.

panick21_ 5y ago

OneWeb has a real, real problem now. They are burning cash, not making any money, and are not anywhere close to commercial service. Moving to a different launch vehicle right now is horrible for them because quite simply there are not any, with exception of maybe SpaceX. That would directly fund your competitor who is already beating you. The reason is that because of what SpaceX achieved around 2014-2015 the launch industry is moving into its next generation. However right now we are in a transition phase. Lets go threw all rockets of any size. - Russia Proton -> Destroyed commercially by SpaceX, unreliable, production has ended. - Ariane 5 -> Destroyed commercially by SpaceX, sold out, production ended - ULA Delta 4/Delta 4 Heavy -> Destroyed in government by SpaceX, sold out, production ended - ULA Atlas 5 -> Sold out to Amazon and production ended. - ULA Vulcan -> Not flown, engine delayed, flights booked for the next couple years at least even if it flies this year (unlikely). However, overall maybe the most likely as they actually have production capacity for the rocket itself at least. The engines are a different question. - Japan H3 -> Delayed, booked for years, low launch rate - Relativity Space Terran R -> NET 2025 at best (and then low launch rate for the early years) - Rocket Lab Neutron -> NET 2025 at best (and then low launch rate for the early years) - New Glenn -> NET mid-2023 and given engine production, real commercial launches at real, who knows. New Glenn is very low launch rate and reliant on them perfecting re-usability immediately. - Ariane 6 -> ESA/Europe need to shift their own Soyuz launches to Ariane 6, likely no commercial availability for many years. - India GSLV Mark III -> Very, very low launch rate and fully booked years in advanced for Indian missions. I have less information about China but I have heard that LM5 is also basically done and they generally have a lot of their own launches. Unlikely a British/Indian rocket would use China. SpaceX Falcon 9 of course also has a huge number of flight, likely more then all the above combined. But its at least possible that they would sell you a real block of launches that would allow you to finish your constellation in the somewhere in 2023-2024. Around 2027 there will be lots of very large rockets looking for payloads to hope to manage their flight rates. But right now, you are out of luck. Some people on Twitter suggest launchers like Astra, RocketLab, Firefly and so on. This is likely not commercially viable. Launching these sats 1-4 at a time would likely be way to expensive. Not to mention that it would basically overload the small launch market far more then it could handle. So, OneWeb went bankrupt once. Now they are backed by gigantic governments and quasi-government in Britain and India. They better hope those people don't know about the Sunk-Cost fallacy. OneWeb only real advantage was being first to market. Technologically both Starlink and Project Kuiper are on a totally different level already. And I don't think OneWeb was doing massive R&D to compete in the tech race during their hard time. It hard enough to get production going for their current sats.