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SpaceX sends OneWeb satellites to orbit on 55th launch of 2022
SpaceX has successfully launched the first of at least three missions for Starlink competitor OneWeb, completing its 55th launch of the year in the process.
Hopefully ending a strange series of delays that began last month, Falcon 9 lifted off from SpaceX’s NASA Kennedy Space Center LC-39A pad several days behind schedule on December 8th, 2022. The rocket performed perfectly, ascending for about nine minutes to reach a parking orbit around 400 kilometers (~300 mi) above Earth’s surface. B1069, Falcon 9’s flight-proven booster, shut down, separated from the upper stage, flipped around with cold-gas thrusters, and began boosting back to the Florida coast two and a half minutes after liftoff.
Thanks to the launch’s timing, which happened moments after sunset, B1069 first experienced sunset on the ground, ascended back into the light after liftoff, and finally experienced a second sunset while racing back to Earth – all beautifully captured by SpaceX tracking cameras. Eight minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9 booster touched down on SpaceX’s LZ-1 landing pad, completing its fourth orbital-class launch in 12 months. Around the same time, Falcon 9’s upper stage reached orbit.
The update that's rolling out to the fleet makes full use of the front and rear steering travel to minimize turning circle. In this case a reduction of 1.6 feet just over the air— Wes (@wmorrill3) April 16, 2024
An hour after liftoff, the upper stage ignited a second time to circularize its parking orbit. Its payload – a record 40 OneWeb satellites weighing roughly 6.5 metric tons (~14,300 lb) – was then deployed in two sets of 13 and one set of 14 over the next half hour, after which the upper stage likely performed a deorbit burn to ensure it doesn’t become space debris.
For its own Starlink internet constellation, SpaceX routinely launches 54+ satellites – weighing almost 17 tons (~37,000 lb) – at once, demonstrating the kind of efficiency that can be achieved when a satellite is explicitly designed to use as much of Falcon 9’s performance as possible. To some extent, OneWeb did something similar, but for a different rocket. OneWeb’s far more traditional 150-kilogram (~330 lb) satellites were loosely designed to launch on Russia’s Soyuz 2.1 after the company purchased up to 21 of the rockets for $1-1.5 billion in 2015.
But their more traditional hollow-box design and traditional cylindrical payload dispenser means they take up as much or more space than Starlink satellites despite weighing 50-100% less. OneWeb says each satellite provides up to 7 gigabits per second (Gbps) of bandwidth, while each Starlink V1 satellite appears to have about 20 Gbps.
As previously discussed on Teslarati, OneWeb directly competes with SpaceX’s far larger Starlink internet constellation, and refused to engage with the company for launch services – even though Falcon 9 could have likely deployed its satellites more quickly and efficiently – until it was forced to.
“The only reason OneWeb agreed to launch a small subset of its first-generation satellites on SpaceX rockets was a series of egregious actions from Russia that made the pair’s exclusive arrangement too toxic to continue. In June 2015, just 16 months after Russia illegally invaded Ukraine’s Crimea and Donbas regions, OneWeb chose to tie itself at the hip to the unstable aggressor with a firm $1-1.5 billion contract that committed the entirety of its first satellite constellation to 21 Russian Soyuz rockets.
OneWeb nearly escaped consequences from that dubious decision. But in February 2022, Russia doubled down on eight years of small-scale war and Ukrainian occupation with a full-scale, gloves-off invasion with explicit genocidal intent. Europe eventually responded in part with economic sanctions and military supplies that Russia did not appreciate. In response, Russia took a batch of 36 OneWeb satellites hostage, stole the Soyuz rocket OneWeb had already paid for, and killed any possibility of the company completing the six or seven Soyuz launches left under its Arianespace contract. In September 2022, OneWeb announced that it had written off a loss of $229 million as a result of those stolen satellites and rockets.”
Teslarati.com — December 6th, 2022
OneWeb was thus forced to either accept major delays while waiting for European launch options or look elsewhere. OneWeb was able to secure two contracts for India LVM3 rockets, each carrying 36 satellites, but the company chose SpaceX – the only Western launch provider in the world with large amounts of near-term capacity to spare – to launch three batches of 40 satellites.
After its first SpaceX launch, OneWeb should have 500 working satellites in orbit. Another LVM3 launch and two Falcon 9 launches should leave the company with 616 of 648 planned satellites in orbit. It’s unclear how OneWeb intends to launch the 32 remaining satellites.
OneWeb Flight 15 was SpaceX’s 55th successful launch of 2022, leaving the company just five launches away from achieving a 60-launch target set by CEO Elon Musk in March. Following an unintentional 12-day gap between launches caused by several delays, it’s no longer clear if SpaceX can hit that target. SpaceX has never launched later than December 23rd, and it’s extremely unlikely that the company will be able to launch five more times in the next 15 days. Even if it can break through that apparent barrier, it’s also almost impossible to imagine that SpaceX will be able to launch five more times before the end of the year if each mission continues to suffer days or weeks of technical delays.
Originally scheduled to lift off on November 22nd, 29th, 30th, and December 7th, SpaceX’s next mission – carrying a private Japanese Moon lander – is scheduled to launch no earlier than December 11th. After HAKUTO-R, Spaceflight Now reports that SpaceX has another four launches tentatively scheduled this month.
Rewatch SpaceX’s first OneWeb launch here.
News
Tesla Sweden’s port deal sparks political clash in Trelleborg
The extension of Tesla’s lease has drawn criticism from the local Social Democratic opposition.
Tesla Sweden’s lease agreement at the Port of Trelleborg has triggered a political dispute, with local leaders divided over whether the municipally owned port should continue renting space to the electric vehicle maker amidst its ongoing conflict with the IF Metall union.
Tesla Sweden’s recently extended contract with the Port of Trelleborg has triggered calls for greater political oversight of future agreements.
Tesla has used the Port of Trelleborg to import vehicles into Sweden amid a blockade by the Transport Workers’ Union, as noted in a report from Dagens Arbete (DA). By routing cars via trucks on passenger ferries, the company has maintained deliveries despite the labor dispute. Vehicles have also been stored and prepared in facilities leased from the municipal port company.
The extension of Tesla’s lease has drawn criticism from the local Social Democratic opposition. Initially, the Port of Trelleborg hinted that it would not enter into new agreements with Tesla, but it eventually opted to renew its existing contract with the EV maker anyway.
Lennart Höckert, an opposition councilor, described the port’s decision as a “betrayal of the Swedish model,” arguing that a municipally owned entity should not appear to side with one party in an active labor dispute.
“If you want to protect the Swedish model, you shouldn’t get involved in a conflict and help one of the parties. When you as a company do this, it means that you are actually taking a position and making things worse in an already ongoing conflict,” Höckert said.
He added that the party now wants politicians to review and approve future rental agreements involving municipal properties at the port.
The proposal has been sharply criticized by Mathias Andersson of the Sweden Democrats, who chairs the municipal board. In comments to local media, Andersson described the Social Democrats’ approach as “Kim Jong Un-style,” arguing that political leaders should not micromanage a company governed by its own board.
“I believe that the port should be run like any other business,” Andersson said. He also noted that operational decisions fall under the authority of the Port of Trelleborg’s board instead of elected officials.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s X sees outage on Monday as users report issues
Monday’s outage follows a similar issue that befell the social media platform in mid-January.
X experienced an outage on Monday morning, with tens of thousands of users reporting that the platform failed to load across both desktop and mobile. The disruption began around 8:02 a.m. ET, as per Downdetector data, and quickly escalated in the U.S. and U.K.
Monday’s outage follows a similar issue that befell the social media platform in mid-January.
Shortly after 8 a.m. ET, Downdetector showed a sharp rise in incident reports. At one point, U.S. complaints exceeded 40,000, while U.K. reports climbed past 6,000. Earlier in the outage, filings had already crossed 11,000 in the U.S. and 3,300 in the U.K., as noted in a TechRadar report. X users in other locations, such as the Philippines and Costa Rica, also reported similar issues.
Users attempting to access X were met with a “something went wrong” message. Feeds did not refresh, posts failed to appear, and both the social media platform’s app and web versions appeared affected by the issue. The outage struck during peak weekday usage, amplifying its visibility across regions worldwide.
X has not issued an official explanation for the latest outage or confirmed what caused the service disruption. The scale of complaints drew comparisons to the platform’s major outage in November 2025, which resulted in users being met with “Internal server error / Error code 500” messages, as well as Cloudflare-related error notices.
The incident also comes just weeks after X experienced a similar downtime in mid-January. That outage seemed more notable, however, with more than 100,000 users reporting issues with the social media platform on Downdetector.
Elon Musk
New details emerge on The Boring Company’s Universal tunnel plans
The materials outline staffing, construction timelines, tunnel configuration, and operational details that were not previously public.
Newly released bidding documents have shed light on how Elon Musk’s Boring Company plans to connect Universal Orlando Resort’s north campus to Universal Epic Universe.
The materials outline staffing, construction timelines, tunnel configuration, and operational details that were not previously public about the planned Loop system.
The Shingle Creek Transit & Utility Community Development District voted Feb. 11 to begin contract negotiations with The Boring Company after ranking it the top bidder for the Universal Orlando transport project. Now, evaluation documents obtained by local news media reveal how the company intends to execute the project, according to Attraction Insight.
The proposal describes a twin-tunnel configuration, with one tunnel in each direction. It also noted that permitting, design, and construction could take roughly a year and a half once approvals are secured. The company indicated it could deploy multiple tunnel boring machines and install temporary support infrastructure, including muck storage pits and stormwater systems, during construction.
Bid documents list eight internal specialists assigned to the project, including tunnel engineers, structural engineers, and tunnel boring machine experts. Six subcontractors would handle fire protection, communications, soil treatment, and concrete work.
The company stated it “has the necessary internally produced tunneling equipment and personnel immediately available to complete this project for the district as quickly as permits and approvals can be obtained.”
Operationally, the system would mirror the company’s Las Vegas Loop model, using Tesla vehicles to provide point-to-point transport rather than fixed-route buses. The proposal frames the concept as “on-demand, express transportation,” with vehicles dispatched as needed and capacity adjustable in real time.
Stations could be built underground or above ground with ramp access into tunnels. The documents also referenced potential future integration of a configurable Robovan for passengers and cargo, though capacity projections for the Orlando tunnels have not yet been disclosed.
The proposal states that the Loop can integrate “easily into environmentally sensitive areas,” but it does not provide detailed mitigation plans for Central Florida’s high water table and limestone geology, which is susceptible to sinkholes. The company has stated that it intends to hire an Orlando-based geotechnical firm to evaluate soil conditions.
Tesla Sweden’s port deal sparks political clash in Trelleborg
Elon Musk’s X sees outage on Monday as users report issues
