 OneWeb isn't just an interesting company. It's an interesting story. And before we get into the recent announcement, I think it's really important that we go over that story. OneWeb was founded in 2012 with the then radical idea of launching 648 microsatellites to low earth orbit. This massive constellation would be 10 times the size of the iridium fleet which in 2012 was the largest ever flown. OneWeb would be used to provide high speed, low latency internet to the entire planet. Sound familiar? Yeah. According to Wikipedia, SpaceX founder Elon Musk and OneWeb founder Greg Weiler were in talks as early as 2014. But it sounds like those talks kind of broke down and then in January of 2015, Starlink was announced to the world. Also in January of 2015, a couple of interesting people were added to OneWeb's board of directors. One was Dr. Paul Jacobs, who was Qualcomm's executive chairman, but the other, the other was Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group. With the need to launch the largest satellite constellation the world had ever seen, OneWeb needed a low cost, highly adaptable launch provider. And what you know it, Sir Richard Branson was cooking up just the thing. Virgin Galactic. Now back in 2015 when this announcement was made, Virgin orbit wasn't a thing, but launcher one, the actual rocket that brings payloads to space for Virgin orbit, that had started development way back in 2007. And that rocket is exactly what OneWeb needed. On May 20, 2015, OneWeb entered into a launch services contract with Virgin Galactic. They would pay $6 million per launch for 39 launches for a grand total of $234 million US dollars. But these launches were never to be. The first OneWeb satellites would not launch in 2015 and in fact they would not launch until February 27, 2019. They wouldn't fly board Virgin Galactic nor Virgin orbit. No, these first six satellites flew on a Soyuz rocket via Ariane space out in French Guiana. Then on February 6, 2020, OneWeb launched 34 more satellites aboard yet another Soyuz, this time out of Kazakhstan. A month later on March 21, Soyuz delivered 34 more satellites, bringing the OneWeb constellation from nothing at the start of 2019 to deploying 68 new satellites in just two months. The path to success was imminent. It looked like nothing could stop OneWeb except maybe global pandemic. Six days after that March 2020 launch, OneWeb officially declared bankruptcy, citing COVID-19 as their primary reason. Thing is, OneWeb still had that launch contract with Virgin and Virgin orbit wanted their money. When OneWeb went into bankruptcy, apparently it triggered a cancellation penalty worth $70 million. Part of that was paid, but $46.3 million was outstanding and Virgin orbit wanted that cash cash money. In July of 2020, OneWeb began exiting bankruptcy protection with the aid of the government of the United Kingdom in Softbank. In November of that year, Neil Masterson was named the company's new CEO. Then in December of 2020, OneWeb would resume launches out of Kazakhstan, still via Soyuz. Okay, a few bridges may have been burned, like not probably flying on a Falcon 9 or Launcher 1 anytime soon, but that's okay. They still have Soyuz. Launches continued through 2021, bringing their constellation to 428 strong, making it one of the largest in orbit, second only to Starlink. So at this point, OneWeb has basically successfully navigated the pandemic. Maybe a little bit bumpy, right? They entered into bankruptcy, but they got out of bankruptcy. Their satellite constellation is being built. Rockets are launching. It's hard to imagine that the universe would throw anything else at them, right? This is an ABC News special report. Now reporting David Muir. Good evening, and we're coming on the air at this hour with breaking news after the U.S. warned all day of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine that it was imminent. Vladimir Putin has just addressed the Russian people a moment ago, announcing what Putin called the start of a military special operation, in his words, to demilitarize Ukraine. On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and the world was thrown into even more chaos. Thing is, the Soyuz rocket is a Russian-made vehicle. And with the worldwide sanctions on Russia, it wasn't looking likely that OneWeb would be able to keep launching. And even if they could, Russia came back with some pretty intense demands, including proving that OneWeb guaranteed their constellation wouldn't be used for military purposes, but more importantly, that the British government, a huge financial supporter of OneWeb post bankruptcy, withdraws their support. Russia knew this wasn't possible, so no more Soyuz launches for OneWeb. Okay, so Falcon 9's out. Launcher 1's out. Soyuz is out. Who do they have left? Rocket Lab? Electron? Like, there's no one else, right? Well, that's what I thought. But I was wrong. In March of 2022, OneWeb announced an agreement with SpaceX to launch a board Falcon 9. Then, in April, OneWeb announced that they would also be launching a board, the ISRO, or Indian Space Research Organization's GSLV Mark III rocket. Neither of these has happened yet, but according to the Wiki, the first Falcon 9 launch is set to happen quarter four, with GSLV happening in October, both of this year. And actually, fun fact, Toid, this will be the first commercial customer ever for the GSLV Mark III. I did not know that until researching this news story. And that brings us to today and their announcement. With their Generation 1 satellites now back on a path to being deployed into orbit, they're looking forward to their future and to Gen 2. This last week, Relativity Space announced that they have signed a launch services agreement with OneWeb to loft their Gen 2 satellites aboard their upcoming Terran R reusable launch vehicle. Now, we really don't know much about the OneWeb Gen 2 other than it's called OneWeb Gen 2, but we do know that the Terran R launch vehicle will have about the same up mass as the Falcon 9. Relativity Space's Terran R rocket is all sorts of epic. It's the first fully 3D printed rocket on the planet. Reusability? Absolutely. All stages and fairings are fully reusable. The Terran R has a mass to Leo of 20,000 kilograms when in fully reusable mode. Since the Soyuz has less than half of that capacity, one could assume that this will enable OneWeb to launch double the number of satellites. That of course assumes that the new Gen 2 units are not much heavier and will all fit in that fairing. But all in all, this announcement is really, really exciting. The announcement itself is really just that they've announced they're going to launch on a future upcoming rocket that frankly doesn't quite exist just yet and won't launch until 2024. But it shows that OneWeb is once again looking to the future. And that's a good place to be. So at this point, OneWeb appears to be firing on all cylinders again. 66% of its Gen 1 constellation is currently flying with the last 34% slated to resume their rides uphill later this year. OneWeb has launcher redundancy between SpaceX and ISRO. And they have a next generation platform in the works with yet a third launch provider that's all sorts of epic. I think it shows OneWeb leaving crisis mode and moving into future business mode, a great place to be. Say what you will about OneWeb, but they have held on this entire time and fought bitterly to survive. It will be extremely interesting to see where they go from here. And speaking of fighting for survival, I'd like to thank everyone who helped make this episode happen. These are people who contribute to the shows that tomorrow each month. Without you, we couldn't afford to make all of this go as tomorrow, continually week after week, month after month, also fights bitterly for survival. And fret not, Ryan isn't gone. He's just busy this week, so I'm stepping in and trying a new format where we cover one story per day. No idea if it'll work, but you know, trying something new, that's kind of my M.O. Hopefully I'll be able to do something Monday through Thursday with some sort of a live show on Friday. We'll see how it works. Love your comments down below. Not sure if I'll be able to pull it off, but you know, working on it. And if you want to help the shows of tomorrow but can't afford to financially contribute, we'd love to have you help us research, produce and edit these shows too. All of this takes a long, long time and we all have day jobs or school and your help would go a long way to ensuring that we continue to crank these things out and give you space geeky content day after day, week after week. And on that note, my name is Jamie Higginbotham and I hope you have enjoyed today's episode of Space News. I hope to see you soon. And for my fellow Americans, happy 4th of July. Okay, I don't want to do this again.