Earlier this week, ISRO announced that it had successfully launched the LMV3 rocket, which carried a payload that consisted of 36 satellites from OneWeb. The launch was carried out by NewSpace India Limited (NSIL).
The rocket was also deployed from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, India. With this launch, ISRO and NSIL have deployed one of the biggets commercial orders by India’s space organization. Notably, it was also one of the heaviest rockets launched by ISRO. The lift off was done on 23rd October 2022 and the rocket carried a total of 36 OneWeb Gen-1 satellites of about 150 kilograms each. In other words, the total payload had a total weight of 5,796 kilograms.
These satellites were launched to a circular low earth orbit of around 601 kilometers with an 87.4 degree inclination. The separation of the satellites also involved a unique maneuver of the cryogenic stage to orientation and re-orientation. The entire process consisted of 9 phases and took around 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete. After this, OneWeb confirmed that it had started receiving signals from the satellites. The company also took to Twitter to announce the successful lift off and launch from ISRO and NSIL.
Notably, this marks the 14th launch from OneWeb, which brings its satellite constellation size to 462. This means that it has reached 70 percent of its goal to launch around 648 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites fleet that will deliver high peed low latency connectivity across the globe. OneWeb now only needs to go through four more launches to achieve its global coverage plan by 2023. Interestingly enough, OneWeb’s biggest investor is also Bharti Gobal, which is India’s largest telecom operator.
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