Eutelsat OneWeb


Eutelsat OneWeb is a subsidiary of the French group Eutelsat providing broadband satellite Internet services in low Earth orbit. The company has offices in Paris, London and Virginia, and a satellite manufacturing facility in FloridaAirbus OneWeb Satellitesthat is a joint venture with Airbus Defence and Space.
The company was founded as WorldVu by Greg Wyler in 2012 and later, as OneWeb, launched its first six satellites in February 2019. It entered bankruptcy in March 2020 after failing to raise the required capital to complete the build and deployment of the remaining 90% of the network. The company emerged from the bankruptcy proceedings and reorganisation in November 2020 with a new ownership group. Indian multinational company Bharti Global, France-based satellite service provider Eutelsat and the Government of the United Kingdom were the company's largest shareholders, while Japan's SoftBank retained an equity holding of 12%.
In March 2023, the number of satellites reached 618, enough to provide global coverage. In September 2023, Eutelsat announced the completion of its merger with OneWeb and the creation of a new Eutelsat Group company, with subsidiaries Eutelsat and Eutelsat OneWeb.

History

The company was founded in 2012 under the name WorldVu, and was based in Britain's Channel Islands.

Google participation and transfer of the spectrum

Early reports of Google entry into broadband internet services emerged in February 2014, when Greg Wyler, along with two collaborators— Michael Tseytlin, who led engineering, and Steven Fay, who oversaw finance - developed and popularised the concept of a mega-constellation with as many as 1600 satellites. In May 2014, the early concept had been to have at least 20 satellites operating in each of 20 orbital planes to provide consistent internet coverage over the surface of the Earth.
By June 2014, WorldVu had acquired the satellite spectrum that was formerly owned by SkyBridge, a company that went bankrupt in 2000, in a much earlier attempt to offer broadband Internet services via satellite.
By September 2014, the WorldVu company had 30 employees, and several Google employees who had joined Google as part of the acquisition of O3b Networks in 2013 — Greg Wyler, Brian Holz, Michael Tseytlin and David Bettinger — left Google to become a part of WorldVu Satellites Ltd. They took with them the rights to a certain radio frequency spectrum that could be used to provide Internet access. At the time, WorldVu was working closely with SpaceX and SpaceX's founder Elon Musk to explore satellite internet services, although no formal relationship had been established and no launch commitments had been made in 2014.

SpaceX, initial manufacturing plans

By November 2014, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk and Wyler were considering options for building a factory to manufacture high-volume low-cost satellites, and that "initial talks had been held with state officials in Florida and Colorado" about potentially locating a factory in those states, as well as that SpaceX would likely launch the satellites. Also in November 2014, WorldVu issued a tender "to satellite manufacturers for 640 125-kg satellites", asking for responses by mid-December 2014, having secured regulatory approval for use of the requisite electromagnetic spectrum communication frequencies in mid-2014.
The 2014 OneWeb solicitation to satellite manufacturers was for a total build of approximately 900 small Internet-delivery satellites, including ground and on-orbit spares. Responses were received from both European and American manufacturers including Airbus Defence and Space, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, OHB SE, SSL and Thales Alenia Space, and discussions focused on how each of these companies might "escape their status-quo histories as major space hardware contractors and remake themselves into producers capable of producing multiple satellites per month, each with a cost of fewer than US$500,000". OneWeb announced that it planned to form a joint venture with the winning bidder and open a new facility for manufacturing the new smallsats.

Funding from Virgin Group and Qualcomm

In January 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported that WorldVu, now operating under the name OneWeb Ltd, had secured funding from Virgin Group and Qualcomm to build and launch the constellation. OneWeb also divulged that the planned satellites would weigh approximately 125 kg and that the plans were to deploy approximately 650 of them in low Earth orbit to operate at altitude. Just a few days later, Elon Musk announced the rival Starlink venture, with the opening of the SpaceX satellite development facility in Seattle, Washington, with the intent of taking SpaceX itself into the business of internet provision and internet backhaul services, initially announced as aiming to build an approximately 4000-satellite constellation, with the first generation becoming operational in approximately 2020.
The satellites for the OneWeb constellation were initially announced to be in the class, about the same size as the two Earth-imaging satellites that were then operated by Skybox Imaging, which Google acquired in August 2014. However, by the following year, sources put the satellites nearer in mass.

Pre-launch agreements and investments

In 2015, OneWeb secured US$500 million in funding, and agreed to purchase certain future launch services, from existing aerospace industry companies Arianespace and Virgin Galactic. In June 2015, OneWeb also entered into a deal with Airbus Defence and Space for the construction of its broadband Internet satellites after a competition among American and European manufacturers.
In July 2016, one year after the initial announcement, OneWeb stated they were on schedule. In December 2016, OneWeb raised US$1 billion from SoftBank Group Corp. and US$200 million from existing investors.
In February 2017, OneWeb announced that it expected to sell all of its capacity by launch time. At the time, it had formally announced capacity sold for a joint Gogo and Intelsat venture. OneWeb's founder and then executive chairman Greg Wyler announced he was considering nearly quadrupling the size of the satellite constellation by adding 1972 additional satellites that OneWeb had priority rights to. With the original capital raise of US$500 million in 2015, plus the US$1 billion investment of SoftBank in 2016, previous "investors committed to an additional US$200 million, bringing OneWeb's total capital raised to US$1.7 billion". A merger arrangement with Intelsat that had been in negotiations during May 2017 collapsed in June 2017 and did not go forward.

Manufacturing and constellation rollout

The constellation was originally announced in June 2014 to be just half of the total of approximately 720 satellites. A quarter of the satellites were to make up the initial constellation, and these would operate in the lower of the two proposed orbits, at approximately. The initial constellation would presumably be raised or lowered into its final orbital altitude of either or as consumer and business use of the broadband service grows over time. By early 2015, OneWeb indicated that the first launches would occur no earlier than 2017.
In February 2016, OneWeb announced that they would set up an assembly and test facility in Florida with plans to assemble and launch the majority of the satellites by the end of 2019, while manufacturing an additional 250 of the 140 kg-satellites as spares to be used in later years.
In 2019, OneWeb had formed a joint venture, OneWeb Satellites, with the European company Airbus Defence and Space in order to manufacture its satellites in higher volume and at lower cost than any satellites previously built by Airbus. A manufacturing facility was built in Merritt Island, Florida. Initial satellite production at the new facility began in mid-2019 and by January 2020, the factory reached the target production rate of two satellites per day.
By the time the actual orbital deployment of the constellation began, in February 2019, the planned constellation size had settled once again at 648, near the original projection, with 600 active satellites with 48 on-orbit spares.
In January 2020, OneWeb reached a production rate of two satellites per day. In February 2020, the company launched its first large batch of satellites.
In January 2021, OneWeb amended its application with the Federal Communications Commission to change the number of satellites planned for its Phase Two constellation to 6,372.

First launches and additional investments

On 27 February 2019, OneWeb launched its first six satellites into 1,200 km low Earth orbit from the Centre Spatial Guyanais in French Guiana using a Soyuz-2 launch vehicle. The same day OneWeb announced that it had signed its first two client agreements marking the beginning of its commercialisation. On 18 March 2019, OneWeb announced it had secured US$1.25 billion in funding following a successful first launch. The funding was from existing investors SoftBank and Qualcomm, as well as Grupo Salinas and the Government of Rwanda.
By August 2019, the company had six of its satellites broadcasting at the right frequencies for 90 days, meeting the "use-it-or-lose-it" spectrum conditions set by the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union. This secured the vital rights OneWeb needed to operate its global satellite broadband network.
In February and March 2020, the company launched an additional 68 satellites to orbit, stating that launches would be paused to allow a minor design modification to be made before planning to resume in May 2020.

Bankruptcy

On 27 March 2020, OneWeb Global Limited and 18 affiliates filed for bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The company said the decision was made because of the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company laid off approximately 85% of its approximately 500 employees, but retained the capability to control its operational satellites during the period of court protection.
On 3 July 2020, a consortium led by Bharti Global and the Government of the United Kingdom won the auction to purchase the bankrupt company. The sale closed in November, allowing the company to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy.