OneWeb is back. The British company wants to bring affordable broadband internet access to remote regions with a fleet of low-earth satellites. But in March the company slid into bankruptcy. It was saved by a capital injection of one billion US dollars from the United Kingdom and the Indian Bharti Group. Now satellite production and starts will start again.

Bharti has been holding it since Friday 42, 5 percent of the shares, the British crown 37 percent. The Japanese group Softbank, which before OneWebs went bankrupt 37. Had held 4 percent, bought back with nine percent. Hughes Neworks also holds a small stake again. [/Update] The new owners have also appointed a new CEO, Niels Masterson. His predecessor Adrian Steckel is to remain in an advisory role for a while.

So far, OneWeb 74 satellites in orbit. Already at 17. December further 36 with a Soyuz 2.1b Missiles are launched. It is to be the first commercial rocket launch from the Russian cosmodrome Vostochny.

“We have recognized that OneWeb has valuable worldwide (frequency rights),” said Bharti founder Sunil Bharti Mittal, “And we benefit from already invested 3.3 billion dollars as well as from satellites that are already in orbit and thus secure our frequency usage rights. ” By rescuing from bankruptcy, OneWeb was able to reactivate a joint venture with Airbus. According to the company, the production of new satellites has already started again.

Initially for the Arctic Originally OneWeb wanted to start 889 satellites, then only 650 the speech. Only when enough satellites in orbit have been maneuvered to their correct position in the network can operations begin. According to current plans, it should be ready by the end of next year. Then OneWeb would like to win its first customers in Great Britain and the Arctic.

There OneWeb could be ahead of the competitor Starlink, as Starlink is initially concentrating on more southern climes. The currently running beta test Starlinks is only for customers up to 52 degree north designed. The Canadian satellite operator Telesat is lagging far behind with its Internet project anyway. Telesat has already signed contracts with the Canadian government, but has not yet announced any contracts with a satellite manufacturer or a rocket operator.

The British government is also planning to use the OneWeb satellites for satellite navigation. With the exit from the European Union, the kingdom loses full access to the EU satellite navigation system Galileo. However, experts believe that the British government is using the wrong satellites for OneWeb because they orbit at different altitudes than GPS, Galileo, Glonass and BeiDou.

Second rocket launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome (17 Photos) ( Image: Roskosmos) Update 8: 45 Clock: heise online has received and incorporated more information about the new shareholder structure from OneWeb.

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