The US bankruptcy auction of OneWeb assets is being held today and many analysts expect a strong bid by the UK government will win.
The Financial Times is reporting today that while the auction will be held today, “it will not be until July 10 that the victor will be formally declared after a US judge rules whether the company, with operations on both sides of the Atlantic, and its employees are best served by the winning bid.”
The recent news in the Telegraph that Telesat was “gatecrashing” the auction took some by surprise.
Whoever wins the auction, it’s a gamble with an outcome we won’t know for some time.
For Telesat, acquiring OneWeb assets and adding to the its planed LEO Satellite constellation might help to get its service up and running sooner. And that’s something it may need to do as it competes with SpaceX for customers.
SpaceX currently has 540 Starlink satellites on-orbit with at least another 7 launches planned this year for an additional 406 satellites.
Telesat has to decide who will build its LEO Satellites and has one demonstration satellite on-orbit.