— SpaceX: Facts about Elon Musk's spaceflight company OneWeb is building a 648-satellite broadband constellation in low Earth orbit, which will compete to some degree with SpaceX's Starlink. More than 460 OneWeb spacecraft had reached orbit before today's flight, the vast majority of them atop Russian-built Soyuz rockets operated by French company Arianespace. That arrangement fell apart after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, leaving a launch gap for OneWeb. The company soon filled it, inking deals with SpaceX and New Space India Limited (NSIL). (Terms of those contracts have not been disclosed.) The first liftoff under the NSIL deal occurred on Oct. 21, when an Indian GSLV Mark III rocket successfully lofted 36 OneWeb spacecraft. Thursday's launch marked SpaceX's first OneWeb mission. It was also OneWeb's first launch from Florida and meant OneWeb now has more than 500 satellites in orbit. A view of the final OneWeb internet satellite separating from SpaceX's Falcon 9 upper stage after a successful launch on Dec. 8, 2022. The bright objects in the background are other OneWeb satellites deployed earlier in the mission. (Image credit: Future) Thursday's liftoff had been scheduled for Tuesday (Dec. 6), but SpaceX pushed it back to perform more checks — something Elon Musk's company has done with several of its Falcon 9 rockets recently. It was SpaceX's 55th launch of 2022. Editor's note: This story was updated at 6 p.m. EST to note the successful liftoff of the OneWeb mission by SpaceX. An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified SpaceX's launch commentator. She is Youmei Zhou, a SpaceX propulsion engineer. The story was updated again at 9:35 p.m. EST with news of successful satellite deployment. Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com. See all comments (0)