In May 2022, OneWeb announced a partnership with Astroscale Ltd.* to safeguard their satellite technology with ground-breaking new spacecraft technology. Thanks in part to a new investment of €14.8 million. The mission to demonstrate Astroscale’s ELSA-M servicer will launch towards the end of 2024, with ambitious plans to deliver a debris removal service to satellite operators. The announcement builds upon the Sunrise partnership programme launched in 2019 between the European Space Agency (E.S.A.) and OneWeb to support the advancement of next generation technologies. This will enable the complete design of the ELSA-M servicer, from conception and design to manufacturing and satellite pre-integration phase. Once complete, the servicer will be capable of capturing and removing multiple satellites in a single mission, once they reach the end of their operational lifecycle in low Earth orbit (LEO).
John Auburn, Managing Director at Astroscale Ltd., said, “We’re putting our telecommunications services at risk unless we start cleaning up space. Astroscale’s ELSA-M servicer is designed to build on our ELSA-d demonstration mission to clean up orbital debris. This spacecraft will demonstrate our innovative rendezvous, capture and de-orbit capabilities with a full-size constellation client.
“We plan to launch our commercial service for satellite operators, such as OneWeb and others, soon after the in-orbit demonstration, with a vision to make debris removal part of routine operations by 2030. We are very grateful to the UK Space Agency for their continued support to develop this innovative technology, leading to our commercial services that will contribute to a sustainable economy in space.”
Satellites provide essential services such as, weather forecasting, disaster management, GPS, data for banking systems and broadband. If the orbital environment becomes too congested with debris or out of commission satellites a number of issues with connectivity can arise.
OneWeb will also join Telespazio, a joint venture between Leonardo (67%) and Thales (33%), at Eurosatory 2022 to showcase their partnership to deliver OneWeb services to government customers.
OneWeb and Telespazio will take part in Eurosatory, the premier international defence and security exhibition (13-17 June), to demonstrate some of the many exciting advancements made possible by the companies’ previously announced partnership. OneWeb and Telespazio will offer customers a range of services made possible through OneWeb’s secure, resilient, high-performance connectivity spanning sectors including civil government, public safety, and defence.
Alongside user terminal manufacturer Kymeta, OneWeb and Telespazio will showcase demonstrations of the innovative flat electronically-steered user terminal jointly developed by Kymeta and OneWeb.
The demonstrations of the new user terminal powered by Kymeta™ u8 flat panel antenna technology will provide Eurosatory visitors with the opportunity to see the OneWeb and Telespazio capabilities in action. This user terminal is designed to seamlessly interoperate between geostationary (GEO) and OneWeb low Earth orbit (LEO) services to support fixed applications, Communication on the Pause (COTP), and future Communications on the Move (COTM) mission-critical use cases on land and at sea.
Telespazio and OneWeb's partnership began in 2017 through a collaboration to host OneWeb ground stations at the Scanzano Space Center in Sicily. Since then, the site has grown from four antennas to 14, making Scanzano one of OneWeb's key operational gateways in southern Europe. In addition, earlier this year, OneWeb and Telespazio broke ground on a new gateway site in Brazil.
These collaborations exemplify OneWeb and Telespazio’s deep partnership and continued focus on delivering unrivalled experiences for customers with high-speed, low-latency connectivity that can meet the needs of both the private sector and government users including military, police, fire, search and rescue, border security, and maritime safety and defence.
“We are thrilled to be joining our friends at Telespazio to showcase the power of OneWeb connectivity and the promise it holds for delivering defence and security solutions to a wide range of government customers,” said Dylan Browne, Head of Government Services, OneWeb. “Eurosatory is an incredible opportunity to show the people on the leading edge of defence innovation what our LEO solution looks like in the field, and how it can meet their needs and demands.”
About OneWeb
OneWeb is a global communications network powered from space, headquartered in London, enabling connectivity for governments, businesses, and communities. It is implementing a constellation of Low Earth Orbit satellites with a network of global gateway stations and a range of user terminals to provide an affordable, fast, high-speed and low-latency communications service, connected to the IoT future and a pathway to 5G. Find out more at www.oneweb.world.
About Partner Wholesale Networks
Partner Wholesale Networks Pty Ltd (PWN) is a leading independent wholesale network provider of Voice, Data, Cloud and UC services specifically tailored to sell through small and medium sized telecommunications businesses from a start up telecommunications sales professional to a well established telco service provider or systems integrator. We are thrilled to be on the forefront of the evolution of satellite and launch technology which is making integration both technically possible & economically feasible. With Partner Wholesale Networks as your business partner or wholesale telco supplier, you can access all Tier 1 networks and telecommunications products from one place. You get a single point of contact, backed by a world-class customer service & business support platform.
