OneWeb sets a launch date for next week on a Falcon 9 rocket

OneWeb, as ever, is doing what it needs to to survive.

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[Thakk]

Pragmatic, indeed. I hope OneWeb completes their constellation and has a strong service offering. More competition is better!

 

[BrangdonJ]

But both are very interested in providing communications services to national defense agencies, so there is definitely overlap in their interests.
----

Certainly can't see US intel agencies buying time on Indian/UK owned satellites.

They can use end-to-end encryption, so the only real risk is that service might be withdrawn. The UK at least is an ally; I doubt it would happen.

 

[jonah]

I can easily see DoD hedging it’s bets and using OneWeb in addition to Starlink.

Redundancy is a feature, not a bug when you’re the military.

 

[Tridus]

At the end of the day, they need satellites in orbit to have a business. SpaceX may not be their first choice in ways to make that happen, but there's no question they CAN make it happen.

So yeah, OneWeb doing what they need to do.

 

[nonesuchluck]

Never understood these companies reticence to book flights with SpaceX. I don't know how much profit is in their commercial launches, but Falcon's value proposition is so ahead of the alternatives--it always seemed to me that in choosing anything else, Amazon/OneWeb et al are hurting themselves more than flying F9 benefits SpaceX.

 

[Lonyo]

At the end of the day, they need satellites in orbit to have a business. SpaceX may not be their first choice in ways to make that happen, but there's no question they CAN make it happen.

So yeah, OneWeb doing what they need to do.

Surely it's more an issue for SpaceX than Oneweb.

SpaceX is the one enabling its competitor... Maybe they make a bit of money on the launch but a handful of launches isn't going to end the world. And Oneweb probably pays less than for a Soyuz, so while SpaceX might make a bit of money, OneWeb probably saves more.

 

[Will_222222]

Surely it's more an issue for SpaceX than Oneweb.

SpaceX is the one enabling its competitor... Maybe they make a bit of money on the launch but a handful of launches isn't going to end the world. And Oneweb probably pays less than for a Soyuz, so while SpaceX might make a bit of money, OneWeb probably saves more.

I guess this also helps ensure that there are no anti-trust allegations being levied against SpaceX for both launching their own satellites and selling services using them. That could potentially have resulted in SpaceX and Starlink being forced to break up and operate as separate companies.

 

[KaprJarda]

Surely it's more an issue for SpaceX than Oneweb.

SpaceX is the one enabling its competitor... Maybe they make a bit of money on the launch but a handful of launches isn't going to end the world. And Oneweb probably pays less than for a Soyuz, so while SpaceX might make a bit of money, OneWeb probably saves more.

Other way to see this is, that no matter whether Starlink or OneWeb wins, SpaceX wins (as the launch provider for huge constellation).

In the first place, the LEO internet customer base is still growing and there is enough place for two providers. OneWeb going online might not even slow down Starlink, just increase the growth of the whole segment.

 

[Herbicide3533]

Never understood these companies reticence to book flights with SpaceX. I don't know how much profit is in their commercial launches, but Falcon's value proposition is so ahead of the alternatives--it always seemed to me that in choosing anything else, Amazon/OneWeb et al are hurting themselves more than flying F9 benefits SpaceX.

I think the perspective they're looking at is in terms of the benefit to SpaceX. They charge ~$60M per launch, but internal cost was a little under half that based on most recent numbers. So for every F9 flight they buy, they're effectively covering the cost of launching one batch of Starlink sats. Which isn't a lot, but considering that Starlink is already the market leader in megaconstellations and represents an almost existential threat to most satellite communications companies, it's somewhat understandable that they'd be hesitant to essentially subsidize Starlink launches. From what I understand, SpaceX at least has been completely open to launching for pretty much anyone willing to pay.

Earlier there may have also been concern that SpaceX might gain insight into how their satellites work, benefiting their work on Starlink (of course that doesn't really matter anymore).

 

[BigFire]

Due to it's current position on the commercial launch market, SpaceX have made it apparent to anyone who would listen that they will launch anyone who have cleared State Department's munition control criteria for launches. I mean they may very well grow into a monopoly so they want to stave off that criticism by launching anyone for a fee.

 

[mcrnxuesen]

Pointless to hedge against the most reliable, most frequently launched, and very affordable launch platform (SpaceX) with ISRO and its abysmal launch cadence.

 

[blckgrffn]

Pointless to hedge against the most reliable, most frequently launched, and very affordable launch platform (SpaceX) with ISRO and its abysmal launch cadence.

Greasing palms for the future. There is business to be done in India.

Also, helping to ensure they have a redundant launch option that actually exists for when/if they need it. No matter how slow the cadence.

 

[Dhalgren]

I guess this also helps ensure that there are no anti-trust allegations being levied against SpaceX for both launching their own satellites and selling services using them. That could potentially have resulted in SpaceX and Starlink being forced to break up and operate as separate companies.

I seem to recall the original plan was to spin off Starlink (and maybe that still is the plan) once "critical mass" is reached.

 

[MMarsh]

Other way to see this is, that no matter whether Starlink or OneWeb wins, SpaceX wins (as the launch provider for huge constellation).

In the first place, the LEO internet customer base is still growing and there is enough place for two providers. OneWeb going online might not even slow down Starlink, just increase the growth of the whole segment.

I can think of a fair number of commercial, scientific, military, etc. applications where, if there's only one provider, you'll grudgingly go with that.... but if there are two providers, you'll happily buy terminals from both, wire them into a load balanced / auto failover setup, and pay 2x the total operating cost just for the uptime & availability.

Inmarsat and Iridium are nominally competitors in the same way that Starlink and OneWeb are competitors, at least in a few markets (eg. commercial & military maritime). And a fair number of customers just pull out the chequebook and say "Why not both?" The remaining customers generally have a use case that clearly favours one system's tech over the other, and so choose accordingly.

 

[etxdm]

Based strictly on number of satellites, unless One Web has figured out some magic way to increase bandwidth by a lot, they will be like the Sprint of space based internet. And that will be even more true if Bezos ever launches his constellation.

 

[Ken the Bin]

Here's the schedule for the launch ...

SpaceX - OneWeb #15 (SpaceX #1) - F9 B1069.4 from KSC LC-39A:

Primary Day = Tuesday, December 6 at ~~22:37 UTC (~~17:37 EST) (convert time).
Backup Day #1 = Wednesday, December 7 at ~~22:32 UTC (~~17:32 EST) (convert time).
Backup Day #2 = Thursday, December 8 at ~~22:27 UTC (~~17:27 EST) (convert time).
Backup Day #3 = Friday, December 9 at ~~22:23 UTC (~~17:23 EST) (convert time).
Backup Day #4 = Saturday, December 10 at ~~22:19 UTC (~~17:19 EST) (convert time).
Backup Day #5 = Sunday, December 11 at ~~22:14 UTC (~~17:14 EST) (convert time).
Backup Day #6 = Monday, December 12 at ~~22:10 UTC (~~17:10 EST) (convert time).

Note: The booster will be RTLS to LZ-1.

 

[trinetra]

Greasing palms for the future. There is business to be done in India.

Also, helping to ensure they have a redundant launch option that actually exists for when/if they need it. No matter how slow the cadence.

ISRO already launched 36 One Web sats in Oct.
https://www.isro.gov.in/LVM3_M2_OneWebIndia.html

 

[same.dan]

"both (OneWeb and Starlink) are very interested in providing communications services to national defense agencies" - this is 2022 in a nutshell.

 

[Paranoid Android]

It's good to see OneWeb finding its way after such a near death experience. To echo the earlier comment: Having multiple options for satellite internet is only a good thing.

On a related note, it's also rather troubling that after all these years there still isn't an even remotely credible competitor to the Falcon-9 yet. I'm not just saying this because of all the...drama around Musk lately. The launch industry badly needs at least two other reusable, low-cost F9 class options, for the sake of competition, redundancy, and availability. Whether it's RocketLab's Neutron, the Terran-R, or if BO ever get's its act together with NG, (ideally, all of the above) someone needs to step up and give SpaceX a serious rivalry.

 

[AdorableSnowman]

Please correct me if this is wrong or outdated, it looks like Oneweb is primarily interested in covering businesses and IoT.

 

[Boopy Boopy]

"Turns to a competitor for help" is a bit misleading when the launch provider (SpaceX) is just as equally "selling services to a competitor for profit, because, business."

I don't think any business in history has failed to use transportation services from the only available transportation provider just because that provider happens to have a non-transportation wing (satellite internet, in this case) that competes in the first business's domain. It's like saying an internet/telecomms provider "turned to a competitor for help" by buying usage of the existing copper lines.

 

[Statistical]

But both are very interested in providing communications services to national defense agencies, so there is definitely overlap in their interests.
----

Certainly can't see US intel agencies buying time on Indian/UK owned satellites.

The US currently buys time on UK, French, German basically everyone satellites. The DoD does maintain its own constellation (in the old sense of the word as in a dozen or two sats) but it is perpetually and critically short on throughput so it has used commercial services for decades now. Every time they upgrade or expand their fleet by the time it is deployed bandwidth needs have grown faster than the capacity gains.

Of course traffic is encrypted. The satellite provider is simply a blind dumb relay with no knowledge what is being sent and to who or why. I am sure Navy Seals that snuck into Pakistan to kill Bin Laden were using 100% end to end DoD only network. The blueforce tracker in my HMMWV in Iraq bounced off a Viasat geosat bird because it was in a good location.

 

[wagnerrp]

Based strictly on number of satellites, unless One Web has figured out some magic way to increase bandwidth by a lot, they will be like the Sprint of space based internet. And that will be even more true if Bezos ever launches his constellation.

OneWeb was designed when 650 satellites was ambitious, SpaceX was only doing single-digit launches per year and suffering failures, and most people considered launching thousands of satellites every year to be ridiculous. You can’t fault them too much for being caught off guard by a competitor doing something many considered logistically impossible.

They have made a request for a second gen constellation, and while that initial request was for a silly 48k satellites made during the middle of their bankruptcy proceedings, the current version is a reasonable 6.4k.

 

[wagnerrp]

The satellite provider is simply a blind dumb relay with no knowledge what is being sent and to who or why.

Not completely blind. They’re going to know what customer and what spot beam.

 

[cucumberragingbull]

But both are very interested in providing communications services to national defense agencies, so there is definitely overlap in their interests.
----

Certainly can't see US intel agencies buying time on Indian/UK owned satellites.

The U.K. owns 10% but the company is French controlled.

When our current PM was Chancellor he refused to stump up more cash in the funding rounds and now it’s merged with a French company.

 

[Statistical]

Not completely blind. They’re going to know what customer and what spot beam.

True. If stuff requires a higher level of OpSec it will use the DoD network. However for every secret squirrel mission there are dozens of more mundane uses where that kind of leakage is considered acceptable. From the signal sent by my HMMWV Viasat would know that this (and other) US terminals were in Iraq. Of course anyone turning on CNN would know that as well.

 

[niwax]

Never understood these companies reticence to book flights with SpaceX. I don't know how much profit is in their commercial launches, but Falcon's value proposition is so ahead of the alternatives--it always seemed to me that in choosing anything else, Amazon/OneWeb et al are hurting themselves more than flying F9 benefits SpaceX.

It always reminds me a bit of business owners who protest against social systems giving "their" money to people that enable them to shop at their business in the first place. And there are enough of those to support entire political parties. Don't underestimate peoples willingness to spend $10 to stop $1 of "injustice".

 

[Mandella]

I guess this also helps ensure that there are no anti-trust allegations being levied against SpaceX for both launching their own satellites and selling services using them. That could potentially have resulted in SpaceX and Starlink being forced to break up and operate as separate companies.

They plan to do that anyway, but your main point is valid. All other reasons aside, it would potentially cause all sorts of legal and regulatory trouble down the road if they deliberately acted to inhibit competition.

Keep in mind too that SpaceX happily launches GEO-sats for other broadband providers, and they are very much in competition with them also.

 

[voytechs]

In hindsight, and I do understand that its easy to make this claim after the fact, it was very dumb of OneWeb to place all its eggs in the Russian basket. They should realized that Russia is not the most reliable partner (Rogodzin was a huge hint) and spread the launches around, including SpaceX from the get go. SpaceX has always said they were willing to provide launch services even to its direct competitors. No price markups or restrictions. Should have been a nobrainer decision

I guess pride and some silly thinking went into OneWeb decision making process until reality slapped them on the head.

 

[Mandella]

Never understood these companies reticence to book flights with SpaceX. I don't know how much profit is in their commercial launches, but Falcon's value proposition is so ahead of the alternatives--it always seemed to me that in choosing anything else, Amazon/OneWeb et al are hurting themselves more than flying F9 benefits SpaceX.

IIRC, the reticence from OneWeb came from Greg Wyler, who used to work for with* SpaceX and (to no surprise to some here I wager) came to have a personal problem with Musk. So much so in fact that he was frequently seen in Twitter threads forwarding and originating any and all FUD against SpaceX and Starlink -- thus the surprise that OneWeb would use Elon's services.

But Wyler lost control of the company during the 2020 bankruptcy, and since then OneWeb has been a lot more rational in its business decisions. The current owners just want to get their satellites up and make some money.

*Normally butters has the better memory below in that Wyler was a business partner in a venture, not an employee.

 

[voytechs]

I think the perspective they're looking at is in terms of the benefit to SpaceX. They charge ~$60M per launch, but internal cost was a little under half that based on most recent numbers. So for every F9 flight they buy, they're effectively covering the cost of launching one batch of Starlink sats. Which isn't a lot, but considering that Starlink is already the market leader in megaconstellations and represents an almost existential threat to most satellite communications companies, it's somewhat understandable that they'd be hesitant to essentially subsidize Starlink launches. From what I understand, SpaceX at least has been completely open to launching for pretty much anyone willing to pay.

Earlier there may have also been concern that SpaceX might gain insight into how their satellites work, benefiting their work on Starlink (of course that doesn't really matter anymore).

Those Starlinks are going to be launched regardless if OneWeb helps pay for those launches or not. So it doesn't buy them any advantage it only hurts OneWeb's bottom line with booking higher cost launches and slower deployment. Its all about how fast you can deploy those constellations and start generating revenue. In that sense OneWeb taking away launch windows from SpaceX and delaying Starlink to orbit a bit is actually beneficial and valuable to OneWeb.

Another words, the quicker you deploy and start generating revenue, the less likely you are to go our of business. In OneWeb's case, its go out of business again.

 

[spby]

I guess this also helps ensure that there are no anti-trust allegations being levied against SpaceX for both launching their own satellites and selling services using them. That could potentially have resulted in SpaceX and Starlink being forced to break up and operate as separate companies.

How is launching your own satellites an anti-trust issue? That makes no sense.

 

[mmiller7]

I can easily see DoD hedging it’s bets and using OneWeb in addition to Starlink.

Redundancy is a feature, not a bug when you’re the military.

And compared to a lot of other things, the cost of getting on those networks is dirt cheap for what they provide. Even the high tier enterprise mobile air/sea plans.

 

[normally butters]

OneWeb was designed when 650 satellites was ambitious, SpaceX was only doing single-digit launches per year and suffering failures, and most people considered launching thousands of satellites every year to be ridiculous. You can’t fault them too much for being caught off guard by a competitor doing something many considered logistically impossible.

Greg Wyler and Elon Musk were business partners from back when OneWeb was called WorldVu. SpaceX was going to be the launch provider, and Elon was involved in manufacturing arrangements for the satellites. Greg and Elon were fellow travelers at the then-tiny intersection of serial entrepreneurship and aerospace. They are remarkably similar people. But that's also why their bromance was not destined to last.

It was a disagreement between two sharks. Wyler was not caught off guard, but there was a difference in their ambition. The bigger shark had an increasingly ravenous appetite. Digital packet routers with space lasers on their heads. The smaller shark sought the familiarity of the analog bent pipes from the prior underwater ventures he'd callously abandoned.

Elon announced Starlink a few days after OneWeb announced the basic specs of their constellation plan. He chose to be a rival rather than a partner. They had different and incompatible ideas about the technical architecture of an LEO communications relay system. Not just the numbers of satellites in which orbital planes, but how the system processes and transmits data.

It's good that both approaches will be tried and tested in the field and in the marketplace. It's not necessarily a fair fight of ideas because, after all, one shark is bigger than the other and has competitive advantages which bias design tradeoffs. But if the balance of power were equal enough, maybe there would only be bent pipes.

 

[Boskone]

It's good to see OneWeb finding its way after such a near death experience. To echo the earlier comment: Having multiple options for satellite internet is only a good thing.

On a related note, it's also rather troubling that after all these years there still isn't an even remotely credible competitor to the Falcon-9 yet. I'm not just saying this because of all the...drama around Musk lately. The launch industry badly needs at least two other reusable, low-cost F9 class options, for the sake of competition, redundancy, and availability. Whether it's RocketLab's Neutron, the Terran-R, or if BO ever get's its act together with NG, (ideally, all of the above) someone needs to step up and give SpaceX a serious rivalry.

I agree, and personally have the most confidence in the Neutron. At least Rocket Lab has economically-viable rockets of some sort already.

And Peter Beck seems decently well grounded.

Plus I love the Bond-esqe chomper they're currently planning. That's the cherry on top. It may change, but for the moment that's pretty cool.

 

[alastairmayer]

I can think of a fair number of commercial, scientific, military, etc. applications where, if there's only one provider, you'll grudgingly go with that.... but if there are two providers, you'll happily buy terminals from both, wire them into a load balanced / auto failover setup, and pay 2x the total operating cost just for the uptime & availability.

Yep. Company I used to work for paid big bucks to install two completely separate 150-ish-mile fiber links between our HQ and our secondary data center (and satellite uplink/control center), taking roughly parallel by widely separate routes. Came in handy when after a massive storm a landslide took out a bridge one of them crossed.

 

[alastairmayer]

"Turns to a competitor for help" is a bit misleading when the launch provider (SpaceX) is just as equally "selling services to a competitor for profit, because, business."

I don't think any business in history has failed to use transportation services from the only available transportation provider just because that provider happens to have a non-transportation wing (satellite internet, in this case) that competes in the first business's domain. It's like saying an internet/telecomms provider "turned to a competitor for help" by buying usage of the existing copper lines.

The difference is that in the copper lines case, they'd be owned by a company defined as a common carrier and thus legally required to carry traffic for anyone who pays. The current launch market is under no such regulatory restriction.

 

[alastairmayer]

It always reminds me a bit of business owners who protest against social systems giving "their" money to people that enable them to shop at their business in the first place. And there are enough of those to support entire political parties. Don't underestimate peoples willingness to spend $10 to stop $1 of "injustice".

It's not that hard to understand. If a business pays $100 in taxes so (a) customer(s) can come in and buy $100 worth of goods, in effect that business has just given those goods away for free.

In real life, of course, it's much more complicated because of the number of actors involved -- including the tax collectors and distributors taking their cut.