French satellite operator Eutelsat did not take into account last year’s leap year, which led to an annoying service outage that lasted 48 hours.
The OneWeb satellite group has restored Internet services after the outage, which began on December 31, 2024, Eutelsat confirmed on Thursday. “The root cause was identified as a software issue in the ground segment,” the company said in a brief statement. “Constellation is now back in nominal operation.”
Joanna Darlington, Eutelsat’s director of communications and investor relations, told Via Satellite that the 2024 leap year “seems to be the most likely cause” of the software glitch. Failure to account for this year’s extra day likely disrupted the internet constellation’s software, leading to a temporary outage.
Eutelsat operates a fleet of more than 630 satellites in low Earth orbit. Since 2020, the company has been building the OneWeb constellation, sending batches of satellites designed to provide high-speed internet around the world.
It hasn’t been an easy road for Eutelsat. The company initially relied on Russia’s Soyuz rocket to launch its satellites, but its relationship with Roscosmos quickly deteriorated after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In response to Western sanctions imposed on Russia, Roscosmos refused to launch OneWeb’s satellites unless the company agreed to a list of demands. OneWeb refused, forcing Russia to leave 36 of its satellites in storage at Baikonur in Kazakhstan. After that, the company was forced to rely on its Internet constellation rival SpaceX as well as the Indian Space Research Organization to launch its satellites.
Despite launching its latest batch of 36 satellites in March 2023, Eutelsat has been unable to roll out global broadband coverage due to delays in obtaining permits for ground infrastructure in key countries such as India, Thailand and Turkey. As a result, OneWeb’s Internet services are currently only available in the Americas, parts of Europe and Asia. The company hopes to solve its problems this year and launch full-fledged services by spring, SpaceNews reports.
Unlike SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, OneWeb is focused on Internet service providers and other business customers. While Starlink serves end users directly, OneWeb is more of an infrastructure provider than a direct service consumer.
Eutelsat recently ordered 100 broadband satellites from Airbus to begin the process of renewing its constellation, which is due to expire sometime between 2027 and 2028, in a few years. After overcoming the recent outage, the company is also keen to make sure it doesn’t happen again, so there are no more excuses in 2028.
