In response to Mr Kwarteng’s rejection of Russian demands, he wrote: “OK. I give you two days to think. There will be no guarantees of non-military use of the system – [then] there will be no system.”

The OneWeb satellites, worth around $40m (£30m), were transported to Kazakhstan before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and sealed inside the Russian rocket.

OneWeb’s launches from the Russian-controlled site are strictly overseen by US export regulations to protect its technology. The threat to block the launch will spark concerns about the satellites being stranded in Russia as relations between Moscow and West break down.

The Government spent $500m rescuing OneWeb in 2020 in a joint deal with Indian telecoms company Bharti that was championed by Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former senior adviser. 

Oneweb is based in the US and UK. Its other investors included the Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank, France’s Eutelsat and South Korea’s Hanwha.

Arianespace, the French launch provider, is contracted to carry out all of OneWeb’s missions and has already been paid by the taxpayer-backed company under a contract that dates back to 2015. The company has also launched OneWeb satellites from French Guiana but the missions require Russian rockets and are also carried out by Roscosmos, which has suspended launches in the territory.

OneWeb is largely designed to provide satellite internet to rural locations, but ministers have said the company could be used for military applications such as navigation in future.

Reliance on Russian launchpads has been one motivation for the Government pushing ahead with launches from British soil. Many US space launches are carried out by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, whose Starlink service is OneWeb’s main rival.

Arianespace and OneWeb declined to comment.