Dec. 8 (UPI) — SpaceX launched its 55th flight of the year on Thursday, as its Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center, carrying 40 internet satellites for a competitor.
The launch will expand OneWeb’s constellation to just over 500 satellites. SpaceX currently has more than 3,200 Starlink satellites in orbit.
With the market for global internet service “growing exponentially,” there’s room for everyone, Massimiliano Ladovaz, OneWeb’s chief technology officer, told Yahoo! News.
SpaceX agreed to launch satellites for OneWeb after the British company broke ties with Russia in March. Russian Soyuz rockets already had launched 13 batches of OneWeb satellites, beginning in 2019.
OneWeb satellites – each about the size of a washing machine and weighing 330 pounds (150 kilograms) – are built at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center through a joint venture with France’s Airbus.
