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Russia’s Soyuz rocket was scheduled to blast 36 OneWeb satellites into orbit from a launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, said Britain must sell its shares in the company or promise not to use the satellites for military operations. The head of the agency, Dmitry Rogozin, even threatened to remove the Soyuz rocket from the launch pad and send the satellites “to the assembly and test building”. But it appears the UK has refused to cave.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng wrote on Twitter: “There’s no negotiation on OneWeb: the UK government is not selling its share.”
The UK’s OneWeb network is a constellation of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites that beam signals in 3G, 5G, LTE and Wi-Fi for high-speed internet access to all corners of the globe.
The Government bought a share in the company after it was kicked out of the EU’s Galileo programme after Brexit, getting its hands on a £400m stake in 2020.
While OneWeb does not carry out the same functions as Galileo, it has been tipped to one day rival the project.
The UK government came under pressure pull out of the Kazakhstahn launch over the escalating conflict in Ukraine.
But it said it was continuing to discuss the situation with its partners on the OneWeb board.
While Russia appears to be blocking the UK from launching these satellites, Britain may have other options.
That is because there are a number of domestic rocket companies and spaceports are gearing up for the first ever rocket launch from UK soil.
And ministers are said to be keen for OneWeb to use UK launch capacity when it becomes available.
Spaceport Cornwall is one possible spaceport that has been tipped for the first ever rocket launch from British soil as early as this summer.
Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rockets could blast small satellites into orbit in horizontal launches from the Cornwall location.
Spaceport Cornwall CEO Melissa Thorpe told Express.co.uk: “They (OneWeb) are a UK company, and our ambitions would be to work with any UK-based satellite manufacturing company.
“That is the whole point of creating a spaceport in the UK, to service our existing satellite base here.
“At the minute they (satellites) are all being shipped overseas to launch and we want to capture that marketplace here in the UK – we are open to working with any of the UK manufacturers, including OneWeb.”
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Lockheed Martin’s Shetland spaceport and UK company Orbex, which operates out of Space Hub Sutherland, are also in competition with Spaceport Cornwall.
Both companies are also hoping they can provide launch for small satellites, which may include OneWeb’s network.
Orbex CEO Chris Lamour told Express.co.uk: “We can apply for launch licenses that almost no other country in the EU can do right now.
“The UK is actually quite a big player in the generic space sector in terms of satellites and downstream services where we analyse the data in the satellites.”
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