French satellite operator Eutelsat experienced an unexpected failure just after New Year’s Eve that lasted more than 48 hours. The failure occurred due to a miscalculation in accounting for leap year. This affected the operation of OneWeb satellites, which resumed Internet services to its subscribers only on January 2, 2025. In a statement, the company said the cause was a software problem in the ground segment. After overcoming the recent outage, the company aims to ensure the stability of its system to avoid similar situations in the future.
Eutelsat communications director Joanna Darlington explained that the leap year probably caused the glitch due to an extra day missed in the system settings. This disrupted the functioning of the satellite constellation software.
Eutelsat operates a fleet of more than 630 satellites in low Earth orbit, developing the OneWeb constellation from 2020 to provide global high-speed internet. The company’s path has not been an easy one: at first, launches were carried out using Russian Soyuz rockets, but after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, cooperation with Roscosmos was cut off. The other 36 OneWeb satellites remained at Baikonur, forcing the company to turn to SpaceX and the Indian Space Research Organization to continue launches.
Despite the successful launch of the latest batch of satellites in March 2023, Eutelsat has been unable to deliver global broadband coverage due to delays in ground infrastructure permissions in key countries such as India, Thailand and Turkey. Now OneWeb services are available only in some regions of America, Europe and Asia. The company hopes to solve these problems by spring and launch full-fledged services.
OneWeb targets Internet service providers and enterprise customers, while SpaceX’s Starlink focuses on end users. The difference in business models allows OneWeb to focus on delivering infrastructure rather than serving direct customers.
Eutelsat recently ordered 100 new satellites from Airbus to upgrade its constellation, which will end its lifespan between 2027 and 2028.
Earlier we reported on how there was a glitch on James Webb.
According to spacenews.com
