OneWeb, a global communications company, successfully demonstrated its turnkey satellite-based communications system to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) on March 2nd. OneWeb is co-owned by a consortium of investors led by the UK Government and Indian telecommunications provider, Bharti Global Limited. The event, which was conducted in front of service representatives from the US Space Command at OneWeb’s demonstration facility in Melbourne, Florida, represents the first time the solution has been demonstrated to the U.S. Government.
Designed to provide Governments with truly global and resilient connectivity services from November 2021 onwards, OneWeb’s solution will feature a network of 648 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, global gateways and air, maritime and land user terminals.
During the live event, OneWeb demonstrated, under test conditions, how an initial constellation of 110 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites and two ground user terminals provided data rates up to 500Mbps at latency levels as low as 32ms. The demonstration also illustrated the seamless handover of connectivity between multiple LEO satellites as they passed overhead.
Speaking at the event, Dylan Browne, the Head of Government Sales at OneWeb said that this hugely successful demo shows how Government customers including the U.S. DoD can benefit from their innovative solution to support the rapidly evolving needs for low latency, high bandwidth, affordable and reliable global communications, enabled through innovative Internet Broadband coverage. He further added that they are going to be a core component in the global communications architecture of Governments, providing defense customers with secure, resilient, and resilient voice and data communications anywhere in the World.
OneWeb is also planning additional demonstrations in April to illustrate its capability to the U.S. Special Operation Command (SOCOM) and US Central Command (CENTCOM). In November 2021, OneWeb will begin providing commercial services across the Arctic, Europe, and North America. Coverage will be extended to include Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and North Africa in 2022.
Satellites are manufactured by OneWeb Satellites, a joint venture with Airbus and OneWeb at a dedicated manufacturing facility in Cape Canaveral, US with dual production lines capable of producing two satellites a day and of integrating suitable co-payloads into the design.
