spacetoday.net: Venture plans 650-satellite constellation for broadband communications

Venture plans 650-satellite constellation for broadband communications

Posted: Fri, Jan 16, 2015, 8:14 AM ET (1314 GMT)
A new company announced plans Thursday to deploy a fleet of nearly 650 satellites to provide global broadband Internet access, with the support of two other companies. OneWeb said Thursday it is developing a constellation of 648 small satellites that will operate in low Earth orbit, providing high-speed Internet and voice services to underserved regions of the world. Qualcomm and the Virgin Group are OneWeb's initial investors, and Virgin Galactic's LauncherOne smallsat launch vehicle will deploy some of OneWeb's satellites. OneWeb's founder, Greg Wyler, had previously been in discussions with Google and, later, SpaceX; neither company is said to be involved with OneWeb currently.