SpaceX launched internet satellites for its rival on Thursday and stepped in after London-based OneWeb suspended flights with Russia over the invasion of Ukraine. The Falcon rocket took off at sunset with 40 mini-satellites going into polar orbit. They will expand the OneWeb constellation to just over 500, which is about 80% of the planned total of about 630 satellites.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has more than 3,200 Starlink satellites in orbit, bringing high-speed broadband to far corners of the world. Amazon plans to launch the first of its Internet satellites from Cape Canaveral early next year. Massimiliano Ladovaz, chief technology officer of OneWeb, said that with the “exponential growth” of the global Internet services market, there is room for everyone.

SpaceX has agreed to launch a satellite for OneWeb after the British company cut ties with Russia in March. Russian Soyuz rockets have launched 13 batches of OneWeb satellites since 2019. Shortly before launch, Ladovaz said that while there are other launch options, SpaceX and India offer the fastest and best combination.

Two SpaceX launches for OneWeb and another one in India are planned in the next few months to complete the company’s orbital grouping by spring. OneWeb currently provides Internet services in Alaska, Canada and Northern Europe; According to Ladovaz, the newest satellites will expand range to the entire United States and Europe, as well as large parts of Africa and South America, and elsewhere.

The OneWeb satellites, each the size of a washing machine and weighing 150 kilograms, are being built at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center through a joint venture with the French company Airbus. Thursday’s launch took place just a few miles from where the Apollo astronauts last set foot on the Moon on December 7, 1972.