Eutelsat OneWeb: Constellation - General Thread

[gongora]

The first launch of OneWeb sats from Kourou is now planned on August, 19.
https://ria.ru/science/20180110/1512368651.html

[FutureSpaceTourist]

A look today at the #OneWebForAll site under construction in @SpaceFlorida Exploration Park.

https://twitter.com/wordsmithfl/status/953067201493458944

[Lars-J]

I find it interesting that OneWeb is applying to license thousands of MEO satellites and gives no indication in their application that they would ever be deorbited.

Under the current orbital debris mitigation guidelines, OneWeb can leave them in the operational 8500 km circular orbit.  The guidelines say that disposal orbits should be above 2000 km, and stay at least 500 km away from 20200 km (12-hour orbit) and at least 500 km below or 300 km above 35800 km (GEO).

https://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/library/usg_od_standard_practices.pdf

So, in other words, no de-orbiting at all.     (yes I know graveyard orbits are established practice and make a certain amount of sense for some orbits - but the sheer amount of satellites for this constellations should give people pause)

[Craig_VG]

An article about Greg Wyler's founding of a second company in the NGSO sat constellation arena:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/theres-something-strange-going-on-amid-the-satellite-internet-rush/

Speculation is whether this was done behind OneWeb's back or in tandem to eventually be acquired and essentially get double the spectrum for OneWeb.

[gongora]

[Aviation Week podcast] Airbus Space’s View of the Satellite Market

First two OneWeb qualification satellites have been assembled.

[gongora]

February issue of magazine “Novator” (NPO Lavochkin) has 2018 plan for Fregat launches, page 2:
https://www.laspace.ru/upload/novator/%E2%84%962_18.pdf

Below attached a screenshot of this plan (with my translation in green)
From this picture, it looks like the first OneWeb launch is delayed to November.

[Aurora]

Kourou Soyuz missions: O3B F4 mission in March (mission flew on 9 March), MetOp-C in September and OneWeb Pilot in November 2018

[Robotbeat]

It seems kind of optimistic for them to expect to launch 10 satellites in the Spring if they haven't even inaugurated the assembly line. But who knows? Maybe they can do it.

So it's April, and current schedule says they won't do their inaugural launch until November, 2018 at earliest.

Guess my skepticism was founded.

[Galactic Penguin SST]

According to Russian sources OneWeb is considering buying 11 (!) flights of the new Proton Medium rocket for expansion & replenishment flights in the 2020s.

Proton, really? 

RIA NEWS. SATELLITE OPERATOR ONEWEB MAY BUY 11 PROTON ROCKET LAUNCHES - SOURCE
https://ria.ru/space/20180412/1518445644.html

[vaporcobra]

According to Russian sources OneWeb is considering buying 11 (!) flights of the new Proton Medium rocket for expansion & replenishment flights in the 2020s.

Proton, really? 

RIA NEWS. SATELLITE OPERATOR ONEWEB MAY BUY 11 PROTON ROCKET LAUNCHES - SOURCE
https://ria.ru/space/20180412/1518445644.html

This lowers my confidence in OneWeb a fair bit. A genuinely inexplicable decision, even as preliminary as it is. Perhaps Roscosmos promised some incredibly subsidized prices out of desperation to rationalize Medium's development?

[Semmel]

According to Russian sources OneWeb is considering buying 11 (!) flights of the new Proton Medium rocket for expansion & replenishment flights in the 2020s.

Proton, really? 

RIA NEWS. SATELLITE OPERATOR ONEWEB MAY BUY 11 PROTON ROCKET LAUNCHES - SOURCE
https://ria.ru/space/20180412/1518445644.html

This lowers my confidence in OneWeb a fair bit. A genuinely inexplicable decision, even as preliminary as it is. Perhaps Roscosmos promised some incredibly subsidized prices out of desperation to rationalize Medium's development?

According to SpaceNews, Proton Medium is supposed to launch to polar-like orbits. Which might explain the push of Russians to sell the flights to OneWeb and justify that capability.

[TrevorMonty]

Oneweb are just spreading their risk, now 4 LVs in mix, Proton, Soyzu, NG and launcherone.

[gongora]

According to Russian sources OneWeb is considering buying 11 (!) flights of the new Proton Medium rocket for expansion & replenishment flights in the 2020s.

Proton, really? 

RIA NEWS. SATELLITE OPERATOR ONEWEB MAY BUY 11 PROTON ROCKET LAUNCHES - SOURCE
https://ria.ru/space/20180412/1518445644.html

This lowers my confidence in OneWeb a fair bit. A genuinely inexplicable decision, even as preliminary as it is. Perhaps Roscosmos promised some incredibly subsidized prices out of desperation to rationalize Medium's development?

I really don't understand comments like this.  I know you think everyone should just book all of their flights on SpaceX, but if someone doesn't want to use SpaceX then this is the next best option.

[Darkseraph]

According to Russian sources OneWeb is considering buying 11 (!) flights of the new Proton Medium rocket for expansion & replenishment flights in the 2020s.

Proton, really? 

RIA NEWS. SATELLITE OPERATOR ONEWEB MAY BUY 11 PROTON ROCKET LAUNCHES - SOURCE
https://ria.ru/space/20180412/1518445644.html

Yeah really Proton. As Proton-M it's an extremely cost effective vehicle already that has launched dozens of commercial satellites. Proton Light and Proton Medium are designed to be even cheaper then again and aimed at new lower mass sats. OneWeb are already going to fly dozens of missions on Soyuz. Because the satellites are intended for mass production, failure of some launches won't be a total disaster.

Overall, Constellations will likely be pretty good news to the low-cost Russian rocket industry and save it from decline.

[CyndyC]

It has been light years since I had a course in probability, but does shifting among launch providers really change the odds significantly, assuming the success rate of each provider doesn't vary significantly? Otherwise that would imply SpaceX understands they'll need to launch parts of their even larger constellation with competitors, which I think they would have at least mentioned by now if they will.

From what I've picked up elsewhere in the forum, distributing among launch providers probably has more to do with scheduling than anything, and One Web might like distributing the wealth & support on the side, or vice versa.

[meberbs]

It has been light years since I had a course in probability, but does shifting among launch providers really change the odds significantly, assuming the success rate of each provider doesn't vary significantly? Otherwise that would imply SpaceX understands they'll need to launch parts of their even larger constellation with competitors, which I think they would have at least mentioned by now if they will.

From what I've picked up elsewhere in the forum, distributing among launch providers probably has more to do with scheduling than anything, and One Web might like distributing the wealth & support on the side, or vice versa.

The difference is that odds and risk are not the same concept. The odds of losing some satellites are just the launch success rate of each rocket. Spreading launches to a less reliable vehicle only increases the odds of losing satellites to a launch failure.

There is risk, particularly related to schedule, if one provider has to stop for a year or 2 for failure investigations, doesn't meet promised launch rate etc. These risks are mitigated by having alternate and backup providers.

[vaporcobra]

This lowers my confidence in OneWeb a fair bit. A genuinely inexplicable decision, even as preliminary as it is. Perhaps Roscosmos promised some incredibly subsidized prices out of desperation to rationalize Medium's development?

I really don't understand comments like this.  I know you think everyone should just book all of their flights on SpaceX, but if someone doesn't want to use SpaceX then this is the next best option.

Hm. I most certainly do not.

From a basic business-level perspective, a 10+ Proton Medium launch contract is a major risk, and particularly unusual so long as alternatives exist. Medium is not a completely new vehicle, but it's also far from identical to Proton-M, and does not have the records of success of Soyuz/Proton/Ariane. Proton-M has a decent 90% success rate, but the causes of its failures (largely organizational, especially quality control) will almost undoubtedly be exacerbated by attempts to desperately cut costs with Medium and Light.

It's reasonably logical that OneWeb would want to avoid contracting launches with SpaceX, but not logical enough to rationalize a rocket that has not flown over those that have. SpaceX has some serious problems themselves when it comes to QA and work organization, but Just not a risk I would take with $500m+ of launch costs and hundreds of millions of dollars of satellites. Proton has had 12 successes in a row; the Falcon family has had 24. Starlink is going to exist whether or not OneWeb marginally contributes with launch contracts.

[envy887]

This lowers my confidence in OneWeb a fair bit. A genuinely inexplicable decision, even as preliminary as it is. Perhaps Roscosmos promised some incredibly subsidized prices out of desperation to rationalize Medium's development?

I really don't understand comments like this.  I know you think everyone should just book all of their flights on SpaceX, but if someone doesn't want to use SpaceX then this is the next best option.

Hm. I most certainly do not.

From a basic business-level perspective, a 10+ Proton Medium launch contract is a major risk, and particularly unusual so long as alternatives exist. Medium is not a completely new vehicle, but it's also far from identical to Proton-M, and does not have the records of success of Soyuz/Proton/Ariane. Proton-M has a decent 90% success rate, but the causes of its failures (largely organizational, especially quality control) will almost undoubtedly be exacerbated by attempts to desperately cut costs with Medium and Light.

It's reasonably logical that OneWeb would want to avoid contracting launches with SpaceX, but not logical enough to rationalize a rocket that has not flown over those that have. SpaceX has some serious problems themselves when it comes to QA and work organization, but Just not a risk I would take with $500m+ of launch costs and hundreds of millions of dollars of satellites. Proton has had 12 successes in a row; the Falcon family has had 24. Starlink is going to exist whether or not OneWeb marginally contributes with launch contracts.

OneWeb has booked New Glenn and Virgin's LauncherOne, neither of which have flown in any configuration, ever, and are at least as risky at this point as a Proton configuration that is extremely similar to Proton-M. I don't see why booking a launch vehicle that has never flown should surprise anyone.

According to Russian sources OneWeb is considering buying 11 (!) flights of the new Proton Medium rocket for expansion & replenishment flights in the 2020s.

Proton, really? 

RIA NEWS. SATELLITE OPERATOR ONEWEB MAY BUY 11 PROTON ROCKET LAUNCHES - SOURCE
https://ria.ru/space/20180412/1518445644.html

This lowers my confidence in OneWeb a fair bit. A genuinely inexplicable decision, even as preliminary as it is. Perhaps Roscosmos promised some incredibly subsidized prices out of desperation to rationalize Medium's development?

I really don't understand comments like this.  I know you think everyone should just book all of their flights on SpaceX, but if someone doesn't want to use SpaceX then this is the next best option.

Is it really the next best non-SpaceX option? Proton M has failed 9 time in 16 years. There is also Ariane 5 or 6, PSLV, Vega, Vulcan, and H-2/H-3.

[jongoff]

According to Russian sources OneWeb is considering buying 11 (!) flights of the new Proton Medium rocket for expansion & replenishment flights in the 2020s.

Proton, really? 

RIA NEWS. SATELLITE OPERATOR ONEWEB MAY BUY 11 PROTON ROCKET LAUNCHES - SOURCE
https://ria.ru/space/20180412/1518445644.html

This lowers my confidence in OneWeb a fair bit. A genuinely inexplicable decision, even as preliminary as it is. Perhaps Roscosmos promised some incredibly subsidized prices out of desperation to rationalize Medium's development?

One thing to factor in is that a Russian news source saying that OneWeb *may* buy 11 Proton Rockets isn't exactly the same thing as a OneWeb press release stating they've actually done so. Remember the news the other year about how Aerojet was going to buy ULA? Always worth taking these sort of forward leaning statements with the appropriate sized grain of salt until confirmed.

~Jon

[GWH]

Is the mass of each satellite and approximate height/width known yet?