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Following the successful launch and deployment of the first six satellites in a planned constellation of hundreds of people, OneWeb raised $ 1.25 billion in funding to boost mbad production. It is a powerful support and ambitious plan to create an entirely new layer of global connectivity.
To cover the world on the Internet, OneWeb means send about 650 satellites at first, then a few hundred more to extend and strengthen coverage. The initial schedule has dropped significantly, as expected in almost all space projects, but the launch of the test last month means that they are ready to move on to the next phase: mbad production and deployment.
"With the recent successful launch of our first six satellites, the completion of our innovative satellite manufacturing plant with our partner Airbus, the progress made in fully securing our position in the priority spectrum of the world's first satellites." ITU and the signing of our first customer contracts, OneWeb is moving from planning and development phase to the deployment of our full constellation, "Adrian Steckel, CEO, said in a press release.
Filling a low Earth orbit with satellites is not cheap. OneWeb currently costs about $ 1 million each, which, added to all other launch and administration costs, quickly adds the point where even a three-comma round does not cover anything. (The total revenue of the company is now $ 3.4 billion.)
But these costs should decrease as the company adopts a more efficient manufacturing platform: its own special facility, built with its partner Airbus. Some of the money will go to the finish and the focus.
The current plan is to bring enough birds into the air (about 30 per monthly launch) to demonstrate connections next year and then offer a limited commercial service by 2021. And OneWeb already has its first customer: Talia, a telecommunications company serving Africa. and the Middle East.
Of course, OneWeb is not without competitors. SpaceX is perhaps the most visible, and provides a constellation of thousands of people, although with only two prototypes in orbit, it is considerably far behind in logistics. And he may not be able to save a lot of rockets for his own purposes if he wants to remain solvent for his larger plans for interplanetary travel and colonization of Mars.
Swarm Technologies is targeting a very low cost solution and Ubiquitilink is exploiting a new IP address to establish satellite connections directly to existing phones, which could potentially coexist with other satellite and satellite telecommunications. Who knows? It's a bit of an open field right now.
That said, the powers in place are definitely putting a lot of their chips on OneWeb, which has an excellent team, strong partners and a big lead over the competition. This $ 1.25 billion tranche was led by SoftBank (which telegraphed its ongoing investment at launch), with the participation of Grupo Salinas, Qualcomm and the Government of Rwanda.
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