A successful launch of 36 OneWeb satellites aboard the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle with the Fregat upper stage was executed on Monday from the Russian cosmodrome Vostochny. The launch of the spacecraft was carried out under the contracts of Glavkosmos (a subsidiary of Roscosmos) with the European launch services provider Arianespace, which provides and operates the launch of OneWeb spacecraft with the use of the Soyuz launch vehicle, and the Russian-French company Starsem.

Today's launch was the third fully commercial launch of spacecraft from Vostochny. The previous two launches from Vostochny were also for the OneWeb mission. The launch was executed by the joint team, which combined the specialists of Roscosmos enterprises - Progress Rocket Space Center, NPO Lavochkin, TsENKI, Glavkosmos – and those of the foreign customers.

The separation of the Fregat upper stage from the third stage was nominal. During two and a half hours in accordance with the flight sequence the spacecraft separated from the upper stage nine times and put into target orbits. The foreign partners of Glavkosmos have confirmed that the company has fulfilled its contractual obligations. All the satellites have been launched into target orbits.

OneWeb low Earth orbit satellites are designed to provide consumers on the ground with high-speed Internet. Today’s launch brought the number of OneWeb spacecraft in orbit to 182 and the company is planning to launch hundreds more.