OneWeb emerges from bankruptcy with launch of 36 internet satellites

Bouncing back from bankruptcy, OneWeb resumed building out its constellation of internet satellites Friday, launching 36 broadband relay stations atop a Russian Soyuz rocket to boost the company's orbital constellation to 110.Competing with with SpaceX's rapidly expanding Starlink system, OneWeb satellites "will deliver high-speed aviation, maritime, backhaul services and for governments, emergency response services and more," the company said."Central to its purpose, OneWeb seeks to bring connectivity to every place where fiber cannot reach, and thereby bridge the digital divide."The company's first launch under new management got underway at 7:26 a.m. EST (9:26 p.m. local time) when the Soyuz 2.1a booster's engines roared to life at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's Far East. pic.twitter.com/0U5shP5343Fifteen more Soyuz launches, purchased through the European company Arianespace, are currently planned by OneWeb. Arianespace oversees Soyuz launches from the Guiana Space Center in South America while a subsidiary, Starsem, handles commercial Soyuz launches at Vostochny and the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.Friday's launch was the first fully commercial flight to take off from Vostochny, Russia's newest spaceport.SpaceX has launched 995 of its Starlink internet relay stations atop Falcon 9 rockets and plans to launch thousands more in multiple orbital planes, providing direct high-speed internet service to any point on the planet.