The first post of the series, This Means War, talked about the general topic of cyberattacks and a particular incident at ViaSat. This post covers a similar situation with OneWeb, an internationally owned communications company
Key to this incident:
Trade and technology exchanges between EU and Russian governments/enterprises encounter political conditions ending cooperation
Internationalization of technology-based markets subject to adverse effects of nation state actors
Cascading problems from complex systems engineering create opportunities for adverse effects.
OneWeb, owned by multiple investors after a complex series of transactions, including:
UK Government (UK BEIS) (~33%),
Indian enterprise group Bharti Global (~30%),
French controlled EuTelSat SA (~17.6%),
Korean-private company HanWa Systems Company,
US-based Hughes Network Group (part of Echostar), and
Japan-based SoftBank Group Capital (~12%).
OneWeb had scheduled a 14th launch of 36 LEO satellites on a Russian Soyuz-2-1b/Fregat-M rocket for its constellation on January 27th, 2022. On January 3rd Roscosmos announced that the launch had been delayed until March 5th by request of Arianespace (from whom OneWeb had purchased the launch). 34 satellites had launched on a Soyuz ELS on February 10th from Guiana. OneWeb, thru Arianespace, had purchased 8 of 10 Soyuz 2 launches in 2021. 6 additional launches (14-19, 13 prior launches have put 428 of 648 satellites in orbit with the 19th launch filling out up to 60 spare satellites) from Baikonur Cosmodrome were scheduled for 2022 by OneWeb. Delays of launch components reaching Baikonur with launcher components and fairing arriving February 1, and satellites arriving February 16th.
Progress was made with the launcher payload assembly prepared February 24th and the launcher rolled out March 2. Then the drama began.
On March 2nd the head of Roscosmos, via tweet, demanded that OneWeb renounce any military use of its constellation and the UK divest its shareholdings. Within hours this was refused by the UK ministerial head of BEIS. The ‘military use’ probably corresponds to the sales push by OneWeb for non-combat mission use cases (such as in humanitarian aid missions), and as wrangling with the EU after Brexit over the EU’s Galileo satellite constellation for Position, Timing, and Tracking applications might cause UK to turn to OneWeb.
The launch was then cancelled by Roscosmos without compensation or consideration. In further developments Roscosmos has indicated that the abandoned Soyuz 2 launcher slots would be filled with Russian space launch capacity in 2022. The drama of OneWeb without capability to launch its remaining satellites to make its constellation fully operational has created new concerns in the global satellite launch market.
Who was affected: UK/Indian/US/Japan, OneWeb
Who was accountable: Russian Roscosmos with EU Arianespace
Who was responsible: Failed contract execution due to the start of military operations in Ukraine
Illusion of Control: EU/UK enterprises viewing launch contracts with Russia government company as independent of other actions
The next piece in "This Means War" covers another disruption to OneWeb due to geopolitical driven changes in the space launch market.
You can read this and other posts at www.ekalore.com/ars
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