TAMPA, Fla. — Eutelsat said Jan. 2 it has restored services across its low Earth orbit (LEO) OneWeb broadband network following a two-day outage.
The French company, which also operates a fleet of 35 geostationary satellites, said in a brief news release the disruption was caused by a software issue within its ground segment.
Delays to build and get approval for OneWeb’s ground infrastructure have held back global services since the company deployed enough satellites for worldwide coverage in 2023.
OneWeb is currently available across the Americas, large swathes of Europe, Asia, and other areas, but aims to start full services for government and enterprise customers — including aviation — this spring.
The software issue was caused by a failure to account for 2024 being a leap year, according to Eutelsat spokesperson Joanna Darlington, who told SpaceNews that services were partially restored 36 hours after the disruption began Dec. 31.
“With the service fully restored a full investigation will take place indeed to ensure it does not recur,” she said via email.
Eutelsat says its multi-orbit capabilities give it an edge amid Starlink’s dominance in LEO, as the French operator plans to supplement OneWeb services with geostationary capacity in high-demand areas.
The geostationary fleet also provides network redundancy, according to Eutelsat, although its geostationary satellites were not used to provide backup services during the recent outage.
Eutelsat recently ordered 100 OneWeb satellites from Airbus Defence and Space to replenish the constellation as the spacecraft reach the end of their design lives in 2027 and 2028.