WATCH: Russian Soyuz rocket launches 34 satellites into orbit as part of mission to expand internet coverage throughout globe

https://www.rt.com/russia/534925-soyuz-rocket-launches-34satellites/

Version 0 of 2.

A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying 34 satellites owned by the British firm OneWeb has successfully blasted off from Vostochny Cosmodrome in the country's Far East. Its payload is poised to help expand global internet coverage.

It is the tenth launch for the OneWeb program and the fourth from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The British company plans to send 648 satellites into space to provide global internet broadband services, and thus far a total of 322 have been launched.

The rocket departed at 9:07pm local time (6:07pm UTC) on Tuesday, under the control of Glavkosmos, a subsidiary of Russian Space Agency Roscosmos.

Writing on Twitter, Glavkosmos confirmed a successful launch.

OneWeb also wrote about the mission, thanking everyone who made it a success.

The launch took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the largest operational space launch facility in the world. Initially built in the USSR as the base of the Soviet space program, it is now leased by Russia from the Kazakh government. Sputnik 1, the first-ever artificial satellite, was launched from the facility.

Like this story? Share it with a friend!

Dear readers and commenters,

We have implemented a new engine for our comment section. We hope the transition goes smoothly for all of you. Unfortunately, the comments made before the change have been lost due to a technical problem. We are working on restoring them, and hoping to see you fill up the comment section with new ones. You should still be able to log in to comment using your social-media profiles, but if you signed up under an RT profile before, you are invited to create a new profile with the new commenting system.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and looking forward to your future comments,

RT Team.