Space News by Caleb Henry — September 11, 2017
PARIS — Fleet operator SES placed a seven-satellite order with Boeing Satellite Systems International to build a second generation of O3b satellites that will have more than triple the capacity of ViaSat’s future ViaSat-3 constellation.
The new constellation, called O3b mPower, consists of an initial seven high-throughput satellites in medium-Earth orbit, delivering capacity through 30,000 spot beams for broadband internet services.
O3b mPower is expected to launch in 2021, building substantially on top of the 20 Thales-built first-generation O3b satellites for which the remaining eight are scheduled to launch four at a time in 2018 and 2019 on Arianespace Soyuz rockets.
Signaling intent to have at least some of the O3b mPower satellites launched before ViaSat-3, Steve Collar, CEO of SES Networks, said the new constellation “will be the first multi-terabit system” in orbit.
“We’ll be able to deliver anywhere from hundreds of megabits to 10 gigabits to any ship at sea, which sounds like a tremendous amount, but as we develop over the course of the next five to 10 years, that is the need that is going to be there,” he said at a press conference here on the sidelines of Euroconsult’s World Satellite Business Week conference here.
O3b mPower will have the ability to aim capacity at customers specifically, and avoid putting beams down in areas where none are present, he said. Software-defined routing will direct traffic between SES Network’s geostationary and medium-Earth orbit fleets, he said.
SES Networks’ investment in O3b mPower further showcases the confidence of SES overall in nongeostationary satellites. Karim Michael Sabbagh, SES’s president and chief executive, said the seven satellite system will, in addition to bringing substantial new capacity, eliminate the need for replacements of two legacy geostationary satellites.
More:
http://spacenews.com/ses-building-a-10-terabit-o3b-mpower-constellation/
