This Monday, Airbus U.S. Space & Defense, Inc. announced completion of a deal with Eutelsat OneWeb to purchase its 50% share of the Airbus OneWeb Satellites (AOS) joint venture, which was established in 2016.
With this announcement, Indian multinational conglomerate, Bharti, and Japan's Softbank, who were earlier the co-owners in OneWeb, are no longer the owners in the satellite constellation company.
Till year 2021, India's Bharti Global along with France-based satellite service provider Eutelsat and the UK Government were the OneWeb’s largest shareholders, while Japan's SoftBank retained an equity holding of 12%. Last year in September, Eutelsat merged with OneWeb and created a new "Eutelsat Group" company, with subsidiaries "Eutelsat" and "Eutelsat OneWeb".
With completion of this 50% shares purchase, Airbus is now the sole owner of Airbus OneWeb Satellites (AOS) and the satellite manufacturing facility in Merritt Island, Florida.
The new structure is expected to provide maximum efficiency and increased competitiveness for commercial, institutional and national security space customers.
“This agreement furthers our position as a market leader in the small satellite constellation business, building on our successful partnership with OneWeb,” said Robert Geckle, Chairman and CEO, Airbus U.S. Space & Defense, Inc. “We will continue mass producing small satellites for our customers and are excited for what the f uture holds for us on Florida’s Space Coast as we move forward,” he added.
Airbus U.S. Space & Defense recently retooled the Merritt Island factory to accomodate the Arrow450 production line and is starting an expansion project to meet increased demand for small satellites from commercial and government customers deepening the company’s presence in Florida.
The Airbus OneWeb Satellites joint venture, established in 2016, built more than 600 satellites at the rate of two per day for the OneWeb first generation constellation, currently operating on orbit.
A couple of months back, OneWeb India received the necessary authorisations from IN-SPACe to launch Eutelsat OneWeb's commercial satellite broadband services in India.
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