Soyuz 2-1b

A Russian Soyuz launcher fired into orbit from the remote steppe of Kazakhstan Thursday with 34 satellites built on Florida’s Space Coast, commencing a sequence of launches to deploy a network of nearly 650 spacecraft for a global broadband network owned by OneWeb.

A Russian Soyuz-2.1b booster is standing at the Complex 31 launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for liftoff with 34 OneWeb broadband satellites early Friday, local time.

A Soyuz-2.1b booster loaded with 34 satellites for OneWeb’s global Internet network rolled out of its assembly building Monday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and rode a rail car to its launch pad for final preflight checks before liftoff Thursday.

The first 34 satellites manufactured on a new commercial spacecraft assembly line just outside the gates of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida are scheduled for liftoff on a Soyuz rocket Thursday halfway around the world in Kazakhstan, kicking off a sequence of up to 20 launches from three countries to deploy nearly 650 satellites for OneWeb’s global Internet network.