Russian Soyuz Rocket With 6 UK OneWeb Satellites Lifts Off From Kourou Space Center

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Russian Soyuz Rocket With 6 UK OneWeb Satellites Lifts Off From Kourou Space Center

PARIS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th February, 2019) The Russian Soyuz rocket, carrying the first six UK satellites for the OneWeb project, successfully blazed off from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, the live broadcast of the launch on the Arianespace launch service provider's website showed.

"Lift off 4:37pm EST [21:37 GMT] #OneWebLaunch," OneWeb wrote on Twitter.

The rocket is expected to bring the satellites to the low-Earth orbit.

The launch of OneWeb satellites was originally planned for February 20, but it was postponed to February 27 due to the discovery of a seam rupture in a pipeline that supplies helium to fuel tanks of the Fregat booster on the Soyuz-ST carrier rocket at the end of January during the launch preparation at the Kourou cosmodrome.

The launch was postponed once again to February 28 due to the non-nominal behavior of the third stage of the Soyuz-2.1b rocket when the Egyptian EgyptSat-A satellite was launched on February 21.

OneWeb plans to create a constellation of satellites that will provide broadband internet access to users around the world, fully covering the Earth surface.