At the 2019 World Satellite Business Week, SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell and SES Satellites CEO Steve Collar announced that SpaceX will launch seven O3b mPOWER communications satellites starting in 2021.
The satellites will be mounted on two separate Falcon 9 missions expanding the constellation’s bandwidth capabilities by more than a factor of 70. Furthermore, the constellation’s bandwidth would increase by 10 terabits per second once the satellites are put in the orbit.
SES’s new venture with SpaceX as partners with low latency adjustable satellites will benefit the customers from various markets ranging from telecom to mobile communications.
John-Paul Hemingway CEO of SES Networks describes SES as
The only satellite network services provider to operate a global, multi-orbit fleet utilizing an extensive fleet of GEO and MEO satellites. – John
He also believes that “the economic and productivity benefits of the cloud should be easily available to all enterprise, maritime and aeronautical customers as well as government organizations, regardless of location.” The O3b mPOWER constellation is designed to provide private global connectivity at ten times the throughput, flexibility, and dynamic control of the current O3b constellation.
If everything goes right, the O3b mPOWER constellation will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida on, as mentioned before, two SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. Collar hopes to remedy with the launch of O3b mPOWER the problem of availability of the high-performance connectivity.
we are pleased that SES has once again selected Falcon 9 to launch their powerful, groundbreaking communications system,– fully supporting our efforts to make rocket reusability a reality. We are proud to play a part in SES bringing revolutionary connectivity solutions to the market. – Shotwell mentioned
SES and SpaceX had worked together on many projects previously which had built their current relationship. Both SES and SpaceX were partners for SpaceX’s inaugural geostationary satellite launch and for the SES-10 which was the world’ first satellite launch aboard the Falcon 9.
