Low Earth Orbit Constellation
OneWeb operates a Low Earth Orbit constellation of satellites that receive and transmit data in the Ku (user terminals) and Ka (ground stations) bands, to deliver up to 1.1Tbps of throughput Worldwide.
A total of 42 ground stations, located on 6 continents will be used to feed the constellation when it is complete.
At that point, OneWeb will have approximately 650 satellites circling the globe:
- 588 satellites equally divided among 12 North-South planes
- 60 spare satellites, with their payload turned off, as backup
The 12 planes operate at an altitude of about 1,200km above the Earth's surface.
- 1,200km is a Low Earth Orbit, as opposed to a Medium Earth Orbit or Geostationnary Orbit
- Each plane is separated in altitude by 4km to prevent inter-plane collisions
- The highest plane operates at 1,219km
- The lowest plane operates at 1,175km
- Each plane is spaced at 15.225°, except between the planes at the seam, where a North-bound plane meest a South-bound plane with spacing at 12.525°
Satellites are visible for approximately 4 minutes at a time over any given point on Earth.
- Each satellite has 16 user beams, stacked in a "venetian blind" pattern
- Each beam is approximately 1600km wide and 65km high
- The footprint of each satellite overlaps slightly with adjacent satellites to ensure gapless coverage
- Each beam contains a forward carrier with 250MHz of bandwidth, providing ±450Mbps of throughput
- Each beam contains 6 return carriers of 20Mhz each for a total of 125MHz of bandwidth providing ±150Mbps of throughput