SpaceX launches competitor’s satellites from Canaveral

After letting Relativity Space have the Space Coast launch spotlight for a day, SpaceX was back to business with its final mission to help send up a competitor’s satellites after they lost their orbital rides in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 a 2:13 p.m. marking the 12th Space Coast launch of the year. It was the third of three launches by SpaceX to send up 40 more of the British company OneWeb’s internet satellites nearly completing its constellation, which is a direct competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink constellation.

The first-stage booster flew for the 13th time and SpaceX recovered it once again at Canaveral’s Landing Zone, giving the Space Coast a double sonic boom from reentry.

The launch came one day after startup Relativity Space attempted to send its 3D-printed Terran 1 rocket up from Canaveral’s Launch Complex 16, but an issue with warm liquid oxygen in that rocket’s second stage forced a scrub. The company will try again during a 1-4 p.m. window on Saturday, for which Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron gives a 90% chance of good conditions.

The OneWeb satellites for Thursday’s launch were actually constructed down the road in Brevard County by subsidiary OneWeb Satellites, which is a partnership with Airbus at a facility that opened in 2019.

This batch brings the company’s constellation to 582, the 17th mission for the company overall and third by SpaceX.

After sanctions imposed by western nations including Great Britain after Russia’s invasion last year, Russia said it would not follow through with the remaining launches for its constellation of 648 low-latency broadband communication satellites unless the British government divested its stake in the company since it helped rescue OneWeb from bankruptcy in 2020.

That prompted the shift to finish the job for the final six required flights with the help of SpaceX and with launches out of India, where the 18th and final mission is expected this month to complete the constellation.

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