According to the China National Space Administration (CNSA), Founder and Chairman of OneWeb Greg Wyler met up with CNSA’s Secretary General Tian Yulong in Beijing on July 28.
During the meeting, Wyler and Tian exchanged views on the commercial uses of a constellation of smallsats in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which is undoubtedly related to OneWeb’s proposed constellation of approximately 648 communication satellites. Neither CNSA nor OneWeb has released any details of the meeting.
The news comes shortly after the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted OneWeb approval to enter the US market. OneWeb plans to launch its first satellites in 2018, and has just inaugurated a manufacturing assembly line in Airbus’ facility in Toulouse.
A few days after the meeting between Wyler and Tian took place, China announced that it successfully released a CubeSat from Tianzhou-1, its first unmanned cargo spacecraft launched in April this year. The release was meant to be a test, in preparation for smallsat deployment from China’s proposed space station, which might be offered as a commercial service.
