The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket using Booster B0173 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at CCSFS, Florida, at 2:13:28 p.m. EST (1913:28 GMT) on Thursday. The mission was the 16th launch for SpaceX in 2023 and the 209th flight of a SpaceX Falcon rocket since 2006. This was the booster B1062's thirteenth mission, which touched down on Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at CCSFS with a pair of sonic booms as it slowed for landing.
The satellites were launched into polar orbit by the OneWeb 17 mission, on a trajectory unused from 1969 until 2020, and then boosted to a 1,200 km polar orbit. The launch of OneWeb 17 will increase the number of satellites to 584, with 582 active after OneWeb reported two failed satellites in its constellation.
OneWeb is a future satellite broadband constellation that aims to cover the entire globe with internet access. The OneWeb constellation seeks to provide semi-low-latency internet to places where ground-based internet is unstable or unavailable.
Most of OneWeb's satellites have previously flown on atop Russian-built Soyuz rockets 13 times, OneWeb had to find new transportation to orbit when Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year ended this arrangement. Since then, the company has launched their satellites on three SpaceX Falcon 9s, and one Indian GSLV Mk3.
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