A Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat booster and 36 British OneWeb communications satellites blasted off from the Vostochny spaceport in the Russian Far East, TASS reported from the scene.

In about nine minutes after the blast-off, the Fregat booster with the satellites separated from the rocket’s upper stage. It will take the booster about four hours to orbit the satellites. The satellites will separate in several stages.

This is the sixth fully commercial launch of OneWeb satellites from the Vostochny spaceport. The British satellites were delivered to the Ignatyevo aerodrome in Blagoveshchensk by an An-124-100 plane and subsequently transported to the Vostochny spaceport. The launch will increase the OneWeb orbital constellation to 358 satellites.

The first six OneWeb satellites were orbited by a Soyuz-ST carrier rocket from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana on February 28, 2019. Another 34 satellites were delivered into outer space on February 7, 2020 and the same amount on March 21 that year from the Baikonur spaceport.