Eutelsat OneWeb: Constellation - General Thread

[RedLineTrain]

There's good value for SpaceX in launching all comers, even fitting in a OneWeb launch or two into its manifest when possible.  Shortly, SpaceX will have the first true RLV and it will carry an enormous payload at that.  It's just insane not to sign up paying customers in that context.

[DanClemmensen]

Depriving other launch providers a major customer.

No.

After the disaster that was "OneWeb on Soyuz exclusively" it is a given that OneWeb will now spread its remaining launches over more than one provider.

If OneWeb needs six more launches and needs them in the next 18 months, they don't have a choice other than F9, unless they can get waivers and use a Chinese launcher.

[Thorny]

If OneWeb needs six more launches and needs them in the next 18 months, they don't have a choice other than F9, unless they can get waivers and use a Chinese launcher.

Could they launch fewer at a time on Electron, Astra, LauncherOne, Firefly, Terran, etc?

[jstrotha0975]

Maybe they can catch a ride or 2 with Japan's H2/H3?

[DeimosDream]

If OneWeb needs six more launches and needs them in the next 18 months, they don't have a choice other than F9, unless they can get waivers and use a Chinese launcher.

Could they launch fewer at a time on Electron, Astra, LauncherOne, Firefly, Terran, etc?

Astra's Rocket 3 is too small to launch OneWeb.
Electron can only managed to launch OneWeb satelites one by one which is prohibitively slow and expensive.
LauncherOne could probably launch OneWeb two at a time, but that still slow and expensive.
Firefly is even more uncertain now than ever with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

H2 would have been the closest direct replacement from Soyuz/Fregat, but I was under the impression production had already been shut down in favor of the H3, which is both not yet flight proven and already has an extended backlog waiting to fly.


So, the realistic Non-SpaceX Options:
Terran-1 and RS1 are promising options, but neither is flight proven nor expected to fly before late 2022. They may be able to pick up later launches, but I think they will start flying too late to risk betting everything.

Vega-C, also not flight proven but is expected to fly earlier (and OneWeb already has business history with Arianespace). Uses a Ukrainian upper stage engine hmm.

PSLV. This looks like the best option still in production, assuming whatever production issues were behind the 2020-2021 stall have been resolved.

[JayWee]

Vega-C, also not flight proven but is expected to fly earlier (and OneWeb already has business history with Arianespace).

Doesn't Vega-C have an Ukrainian built upper stage engine?

[DeimosDream]

Vega-C, also not flight proven but is expected to fly earlier (and OneWeb already has business history with Arianespace).

Doesn't Vega-C have an Ukrainian built upper stage engine?

Whoops. So it does. The replacement won't fly until Vega-E, NET 2026.

[Mark K]

Didn't virgin orbit have a contract to launch OneWeb  2 or4 at a time and possibly also for replenishment? They could go that route to slowly add satellites as was I think one of the original options..

[dondar]

I remind that Airbus is one of the major owners of OneWeb.
I remind that the bankruptcy was rolled to kick some uncomfortable specific investors (who owns Softbank???) out and to get access to governmental tits instead.
So it is obvious that they are going to wait for European launch vehicles and to delay launch schedule.

I don't think they have cash to pay for Falcon 9. I don't think they have anything of value to barter with. And there is a lot of barter wizardry in OneWeb business model.

[alanr74]

I remind that Airbus is one of the major owners of OneWeb.
I remind that the bankruptcy was rolled to kick some uncomfortable specific investors (who owns Softbank???) out and to get access to governmental tits instead.
So it is obvious that they are going to wait for European launch vehicles and to delay launch schedule.

I don't think they have cash to pay for Falcon 9. I don't think they have anything of value to barter with. And there is a lot of barter wizardry in OneWeb business model.

It will be years of litigation of who owes what. However, if there are launch vehicles that come available, in a very short time, I'm sure strings will be pulled and sanctioned Russian Money found to fund them.

Who knows who'll ultimately pay. The courts will decide whether it is Arianespace, the Russian space launchers, insurance companies or the investors. Possible everyone.

It's all irrelevant unless OneWeb can launch soon, because all their customers will have fled to spaceX if they can't.

[Zed_Noir]

I remind that Airbus is one of the major owners of OneWeb.
I remind that the bankruptcy was rolled to kick some uncomfortable specific investors (who owns Softbank???) out and to get access to governmental tits instead.
So it is obvious that they are going to wait for European launch vehicles and to delay launch schedule.

I don't think they have cash to pay for Falcon 9. I don't think they have anything of value to barter with. And there is a lot of barter wizardry in OneWeb business model.

There is the possibility that SpaceX could take some ownership shares of OneWeb in lieu of cash for launching the satcoms as soon as possible. Likely also making raising capital for OneWeb later easier if SpaceX is part of the ownership, even a tiny stake.

Satcoms on the ground in clean rooms is an accumulating expense pushing the balance sheet further into the red.

[M.E.T.]

I remind that Airbus is one of the major owners of OneWeb.
I remind that the bankruptcy was rolled to kick some uncomfortable specific investors (who owns Softbank???) out and to get access to governmental tits instead.
So it is obvious that they are going to wait for European launch vehicles and to delay launch schedule.

I don't think they have cash to pay for Falcon 9. I don't think they have anything of value to barter with. And there is a lot of barter wizardry in OneWeb business model.

There is the possibility that SpaceX could take some ownership shares of OneWeb in lieu of cash for launching the satcoms as soon as possible. Likely also making raising capital for OneWeb later easier if SpaceX is part of the ownership, even a tiny stake.

Satcoms on the ground in clean rooms is an accumulating expense pushing the balance sheet further into the red.

Again, why would SpaceX be interested in that? These all sound like hopeful  suggestions from OneWeb’s increasingly desperate point of view, rather than business based decisions from SpaceX, who have all the cards in their hand.

Do a deal to have OneWeb drop their legal challenges? One way to get those challenges to go away is for OneWeb to just go bankrupt.

Get a share in OneWeb in exchange for launching their sats at short notice? How about just taking OneWeb’s market share directly by outcompeting them.

Making some quick cash from 6 OneWeb launches? They already have a full manifest, and the cash from a handful of launches will be dwarfed by the cash from their 30,000 strong internet constellation.

Trying to appear like they’re not exploiting the war? Well, just accept OneWeb’s launch request by placing them in the queue along with any other customer that applies now. Which probably means a year or so to first launch (still faster than the two year typical industry lead time).

Honestly, other than Elon perhaps wanting to prove a personal point, there is little reason for SpaceX to give OneWeb any preferential treatment in their launch schedule.

[su27k]

Didn't virgin orbit have a contract to launch OneWeb  2 or4 at a time and possibly also for replenishment? They could go that route to slowly add satellites as was I think one of the original options..

Yeah, but OneWeb cancelled the contract, and VO then sued them, not sure what is the status of the case after bankrupcy but presumably the two are not on good terms: https://spacenews.com/virgin-orbit-asks-oneweb-bankruptcy-court-to-mandate-payment-for-canceled-launches/

The smallsat launchers have terrible $/kg, they make some sense for replenishment but would be very expensive for initial deployment.

[su27k]

I don't think they have cash to pay for Falcon 9. I don't think they have anything of value to barter with. And there is a lot of barter wizardry in OneWeb business model.

One thing OneWeb may - and I emphasize may - be able to barter is helping Starlink enters the India market. It depends on how much pull the India owner of OneWeb has with the Indian government.

[ccdengr]

Doesn't Vega-C have an Ukrainian built upper stage engine?

At one point, Vega-C's AVUM+ upper stage was going to use a European engine, did that not end up happening?

[EDIT: apparently they still use the Ukrainian engine, see https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Launch_vehicles/Vega-C .  And while the Vega-C can put 2200 kg into a polar orbit, I suspect it's not well-suited for OneWeb volumetrically.]

See http://www.academie-air-espace.com/upload/doc/ressources/Launchers/slides/lasagni.pdf slide 11 (admittedly from 2015.)

[Asteroza]

I don't think they have cash to pay for Falcon 9. I don't think they have anything of value to barter with. And there is a lot of barter wizardry in OneWeb business model.

One thing OneWeb may - and I emphasize may - be able to barter is helping Starlink enters the India market. It depends on how much pull the India owner of OneWeb has with the Indian government.

That's a pretty big ask, considering how the indian government functionally requires local joint ventures with most products to be assembled in country (or else you face hug import taxes). Getting dishy assembled in india is going to be a huge pain too. Considering how domestic industry protective the indian government is, it could easily turn into a net loss even with favors pulled.

If OneWeb has such large indian investment, then they themselves should be pushing ISRO (which is going through privatization pains) to cover the launches. Though if the government will interpret that as a win-win scenario or not would be interesting.

[woods170]

Any idea how long it takes from order to launch for different rockets?

Six months at a minimum, with 12 months more likely.

[woods170]

Depriving other launch providers a major customer.

No.

After the disaster that was "OneWeb on Soyuz exclusively" it is a given that OneWeb will now spread its remaining launches over more than one provider.

If OneWeb needs six more launches and needs them in the next 18 months, they don't have a choice other than F9, unless they can get waivers and use a Chinese launcher.

Wrong. OneWeb is not done with their constellation once those six launches are complete. Those six launches are the remaining launches in tier one of their constellation. Tier two is waiting around the corner and will require dozens of further launches.

[DreamyPickle]

What do people mean when they say "SpaceX manifest is full"? SpaceX launches have been sold on relatively short notice before, for example CSG-2. Atlas 5 and Ariane 5 have a "full manifest" in the sense that you can no longer buy launches.

What OneWeb needs right now is a way to finish their initial constellation so that they can ensure full service. Future plans can be delayed while waiting for alternative launchers but the cost of delaying the first 648 satellites is much higher.

This was planned for 6 Soyuz launches but Falcon 9 is a bigger rocket so 3-4 launches would be sufficient. Compared to their planned manifest of ~50 launches this is a rounding error, and a potentially very profitable one. There's also good reason to believe SpaceX has significant elasticity in launch supply thanks to reuse.

It's not even clear the extent to which OneWeb and SpaceX are going after the same market. If many OneWeb customers are looking for backups/redundancy then if service is delayed they're unlikely to spend more money on Starlink. SpaceX might profit more from just launching the satellites.

[DanClemmensen]

Depriving other launch providers a major customer.

No.

After the disaster that was "OneWeb on Soyuz exclusively" it is a given that OneWeb will now spread its remaining launches over more than one provider.

If OneWeb needs six more launches and needs them in the next 18 months, they don't have a choice other than F9, unless they can get waivers and use a Chinese launcher.

Wrong. OneWeb is not done with their constellation once those six launches are complete. Those six launches are the remaining launches in tier one of their constellation. Tier two is waiting around the corner and will require dozens of further launches.

My statement was not "wrong": you are picking up bad habits from Jim.  My statement started with an "if" and it referred to launches needed in the next 18 months, i.e., to complete tier one and provide initial continuous service.