French satellite operator Eutelsat and British company OneWeb merge planned

The French satellite operator Eutelsat and the British company OneWeb have signed a protocol to the merger agreement, the aim of which is to "create a single leading global player in the field of communications". As previously reported by the Financial Times, this merger will allow for more effective competition with the U.S. SpaceX.

The merger will bring together the 36 geostationary satellites owned by Eutelsat with the 648 OneWeb satellites in low-Earth orbit. 428 of those are already in orbit, Eutelsat said in a press release.