On 25th June 19:30 GMT, about 1 day and 1 hour 30 mins from now.

Four O3b Networks satellites, built by Thales Alenia Space, and are to be inserted at a medium-Earth orbit altitude of 8,063 km.

Operating in Ka-band, these spacecraft will become part of O3b Networks system that offers high-speed, low-cost, low-latency Internet and telecommunications services for customers in emerging markets.

This Soyuz flight will be Arianespace's fifth with the medium-lift vehicle from the Spaceport since its introduction in October 2011. Soyuz is part of the company's complete launcher family, which also includes the heavyweight Ariane 5 and light-lift Vega.

To watch go to https://arianespace.tv/

I've been playing about with a web page for some time to try and explain how I think the O3b satellite orbits and earth station spot beams are supposed to work.

The result is here: https://www.satsig.net/O3b/O3b-orbit.htm

It is an animation showing the satellites moving along and the way the earth station sites might switch from a setting satellite to a new one just rising up.

I have not been clever enough to limit the number of beams to 12 per satellite. I think there are supposed to be 10 customer beams and two hub beams per satellite. Not sure.

Any information about O3b welcome here, including details of actual earth stations.

Best regards, Eric.

I have spent this morning finding out what is happening with the eight O3b satellites. They are now located at 60 deg intervals along the orbit above the equator, with two pairs, each approximately co-located.

https://www.satsig.net/O3b/O3b-orbits.jpg
I have updated my 'orbit and beam simulation' page, https://www.satsig.net/O3b/O3b-orbit.htm where you may play with alternative orbit heights, satellite antenna sizes and frequencies - hopefully I have not broken the software that draws the beams. Tell me if you have problems.

Best regards, Eric.

Thanks very much for your useful information about o3b satellite. They are really helpful.

I also found an article about o3b satellite on https://www.antesky.com/new-star-of-network-o3b-network/

I believe this new star will really help more people in near future.

News May 2021:

Eight new gateway earth stations are planned for the O3b netowrk.  These sites will provide interconnection to the terrestrial internet cinfrastruture and also provide 03b with additional TT&C connectivity.

Terminals are planned in Australia at Dubbo and Perth, in Greece at Thermopylae, in the US at Phoenix, Arizona and plus  S.America, Chile; Africa Senegal and in the Middle East, UAE.