India’s LVM3 heavy-lift rocket successfully launched 36 satellites belonging to the British company Network Access Associates Ltd (OneWeb) into space and put them into orbit on Sunday morning.

The 43.5-metre high and 643-tonne LVM3 rocket carried 36 satellites into space with a total weight of 5,805 kg or about 5.8 tonnes. The rocket took off at 9 am from the second launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

After a little more than 19 minutes of flight, the LVM3 began hurling the 36 small broadband communication satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO).

Thirty-five minutes after liftoff, the LVM3 had dropped 16 satellites in a group of four each, after which the rocket disappeared from the view of the chasers.

Data on the orbit of the remaining 20 satellites will be released later, ISRO said.

S. Somanath, chairman of ISRO and secretary of the space ministry, said the first 16 OneWeb satellites had been successfully placed. The data on the separation of the remaining 20 satellites will be announced later. The rocket did very well.

Somanath added that ISRO is looking forward to continuing its relationship with its commercial partners.

He also said that the success of the mission gives his team the confidence to move forward towards India’s first manned space mission ‘Gaganyaan’ as this will be the rocket that will fly with the country’s astronauts.

Somanath expressed happiness over the performance of LVM3 and added that there is gradual progress towards the country’s first manned space mission.

Somanath also said that ISRO is gearing up for another commercial launch – launching third-party satellites for a fee – using its lighter rocket called Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

According to Somanath, the space agency will also begin its launch campaign for another rocket – Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mk II (GSLV-Mk II).

D. Radhakrishnan, Chairman and Managing Director of NewSpace India Ltd, on his part said the OneWeb mission was challenging as the cryogenic engine had to be manoeuvred several times to place the multiple satellites in their designated orbits.

NSIL is the commercial arm of India’s space ministry.

The satellites are placed in a 450 km circular orbit with an inclination of 87.4 degrees.

Once all the satellites are placed in orbit, the total number of foreign satellites launched by India since 1999 will be 422.

OneWeb is a joint venture between India Bharti Global and the UK government.

The Indian Space Research Organisation ( ISRO) has given the mission the code name ‘LVM3-M3/OneWeb India-2 Mission’.

The LVM3 (formerly GSLV-Mk III) is a three-stage rocket with the first stage fueled by liquid propellant, the two booster engines by solid propellant, the second by liquid propellant and the third by a cryogenic engine.

ISRO’s heavy-lift rocket has a payload capacity of 10 tonnes for the LEO and four tonnes for the Geo Transfer Orbit (GTO).

The LVM3 has had five consecutive successful missions, including the Chandrayaan-2 mission.

This is the final tranche of 36 Gen1 satellites from OneWeb. Once all 36 satellites are in orbit, the UK company, which is backed by India’s Bharti Group and the UK government, will have 618 satellites in space. OneWeb currently has 582 satellites in orbit.

With the completion of the constellation, OneWeb is taking a decisive step forward in providing global coverage that includes India, the company said.

Sunday’s launch is the 18th for OneWeb.

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The NSIL had signed a contract with the British company to launch 72 satellites in two phases for a launch fee of over Rs 1,000 crore, OneWeb chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal had said last October.

The first batch of 36 satellites was launched on October 23, 2022, from the Sriharikota rocket port in Andhra Pradesh using the LVM3 rocket, earlier known as Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle MkIII (GSLV MkIII).

The OneWeb Gen-1 satellites are in the 150 kg class. The constellation comprises 648 individual satellites. Of these, 588 active satellites, evenly distributed among 12 aircraft, operate at an altitude of about 1200 km above the Earth’s surface, ISRO said.

Each aircraft is separated from the other by 4 km in altitude to prevent collisions between the aircraft.

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The payload is a bent-pipe system operating in Ku- and Ka-band. The forward link receives Ka-band signals from the gateway via the satellite’s Ka antenna. The return link receives Ku-band signals from the user terminals (UTs) via the satellite’s Ku antenna, ISRO said.

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