It entered bankruptcy in March 2020 after failing to raise the required capital to complete the build and deployment of the remaining 90% of the network.

[12] Early reports of the potential involvement of Google in offering broadband internet services surfaced in February 2014, with two of Wyler’s collaborators—Steven Fay overseeing finance and Michael Tseytlin leading engineering, when a "very large [satellite] constellation" was rumored to be in the plans with as many as 1600 satellites.

[13] In May 2014, the early concept had been to have at least 20 satellites operating in each of 20 orbital planes to provide consistent internet coverage over the surface of the Earth.

[18] By November 2014, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk and Wyler were considering options for building a factory to manufacture high-volume low-cost satellites, and that "initial talks had been held with state officials in Florida and Colorado" about potentially locating a factory in those states,[19] as well as that SpaceX would likely launch the satellites.

[22] OneWeb announced that it planned to form a joint venture with the winning bidder and open a new facility for manufacturing the new smallsats.

[22] In January 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported that WorldVu, now operating under the name OneWeb Ltd, had secured funding from Virgin Group and Qualcomm to build and launch the constellation.

[23][24] Just a few days later, Elon Musk announced the rival Starlink venture, with the opening of the SpaceX satellite development facility in Seattle, Washington, with the intent of taking SpaceX itself into the business of internet provision and internet backhaul services, initially announced as aiming to build an approximately 4000-satellite constellation, with the first generation becoming operational in approximately 2020.

[22][28] In 2015, OneWeb secured US$500 million in funding, and agreed to purchase certain future launch services, from existing aerospace industry companies Arianespace and Virgin Galactic.

[29][30] In June 2015, OneWeb also entered into a deal with Airbus Defence and Space for the construction of its broadband Internet satellites after a competition among American and European manufacturers.

A quarter of the satellites were to make up the initial constellation, and these would operate in the lower of the two proposed orbits, at approximately 850 km (530 mi).

[39][40] In January 2021, OneWeb amended its application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to change the number of satellites planned for its Phase Two constellation to 6,372.

[47] By August 2019, the company had six of its satellites broadcasting at the right frequencies for 90 days, meeting the "use-it-or-lose-it" spectrum conditions set by the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

[51][50] On 3 July 2020, a consortium led by Bharti Global and the Government of the United Kingdom won the auction to purchase the bankrupt company.

[56] On 3 July 2020, the Government of the United Kingdom and Sunil Mittal's Bharti Global (formerly a partner of OneWeb) announced a joint plan to invest US$500 million each for equal stakes in OneWeb Global, approximately 42% each; the rest would be held by other creditors including Softbank.

[53][60] Shortly after the July public announcement of the OneWeb sale, a letter from Sam Beckett, the leading civil servant in the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), was released.

[73] In March 2022, media reported that OneWeb was scheduled to launch a batch of 36 satellites from Baikonur cosmodrome days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Russia said the launch had already been paid for and would not be refunded, and would be cancelled from the Russian side unless OneWeb provided additional assurance that the satellites would never be used for military purposes and the British Government disposed of its shares in the company.

[81][82] On 20 April 2022 OneWeb announced a similar deal with NewSpace India Limited, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation.

[93] The French and British governments are expected to have similar direct stakes of roughly 10% in the new joint entity as well as a seat on the board each.

Bpifrance and the French Fonds Stratégique de Participations as well as Hanwha Group and the British government are all set to appoint one director each to the new company's board.

[95] On 31 December 2024, the OneWeb constellation had a 48 hour service outage due to ground equipment software maintained by Hughes Network Systems failing to accommodate the extra day of the 2024 leap year.

OneWeb engineers will then take a few months to test the system before commercial service starts in the fourth quarter of 2023.

[102] The satellites are in a circular orbit, at approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) altitude,[36] and transmitting and receiving in the Ku-band radio frequency.

[106][107][108] The first-generation satellites do not have inter-satellite data links, so can only provide a user service when also in the range of a gateway ground station.

[110] On 27 February 2019, OneWeb successfully launched the first six of the 648 planned 1st generation satellites (600 active plus 48 on-orbit spares) into low Earth orbit from the Centre Spatial Guyanais using a Russian Soyuz ST-B rocket.

[130] In May 2021, OneWeb said that its then current constellation (218 spacecraft), as well as an additional 36 satellites planned to launch on 1 July 2021, would be equipped to service northern regions, including the United Kingdom, Alaska, Northern Europe, Greenland, Iceland, the Arctic Seas, and Canada, by the end of the year.

[131] The company's 648-satellite network was planned for completion by late 2022, with OneWeb making global internet services available at that time.

[135] OneWeb satellites are also equipped with an Altius DogTag magnetic grappling fixture, to make it possible for another spacecraft to attach and change the orbit of satellites whose built-in deorbit functionality fails, though there does not currently exist commercial services to carry out this active debris removal service.

[139] OneWeb's request for a frequency band was previously rejected by the Ministry for Digital Development and Communications, purportedly due to outstanding legal issues.

Iridium SSC filed for bankruptcy protection in 1999, Globalstar did the same in 2002, and Teledesic suspended its satellite construction work in the same year.