It was a star-studded vision of the past meets the future, bringing rapper Will.i.am together with Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson and Tom Enders from Airbus in London’s 200-year-old Royal Institution to launch a new global satellite network.
The event five years ago was supposed to be OneWeb’s breakthrough. It had secured $500m to dot the skies with satellites, connecting remote parts of the world with high-speed internet.
The reality has failed to match the hype. About 70 OneWeb satellites are in orbit, but the firm collapsed into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March after one of its backers, troubled Japanese investment fund SoftBank, failed to pump in more funds.
Earlier this month, an unlikely rescuer came along: the British taxpayer. Alongside original consortium investor Bharti Global,