Resilient & Agile SATCOM
SES Space & Defense provides the U.S. government and key allies with consistent, dependable, and constant access to space communications. With over 70 satellites in orbit covering 99 percent of the world’s population, SES Space & Defense’s satellite constellations are resilient and agile, delivering mission-critical communication solutions across all domains.
We are the first to integrate a true all-orbit strategy, harnessing the power of Lower Earth Orbit (LEO), Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), and Geostationary Orbit (GEO) to fill orbit coverage and latency caps. We believe in tailoring solutions to meet our customers’ unique mission requirements, recognizing that every orbit provides distinct value for different applications. Our investment in the all-orbit domain with strategic industry partners enables us to deliver best-in-class satellite services to our customers across every mission, landscape, and orbit.
O3b mPOWER
Performance Above All
O3b mPOWER was specifically designed to support our government mission partners operating on the tactical edge, including airborne, maritime, fixed, and communications-on-the-move (COTM) missions.
O3b mPOWER provides unmatched committed information rates (CIR), enabling defense agencies to meet demanding operational requirements with unprecedented performance, flexibility, and scale. O3b mPOWER seamlessly delivers time-sensitive information government organizations require to make decisions in real-time. For operations where security and enhanced control are fundamental, only O3b mPOWER’s Sovereign Services support government-preferred waveforms and connect directly to government gateways. O3b mPOWER Managed Services also offers maritime and fixed enterprise operations featuring the same high-performance connectivity via SES-owned and operated gateways relying on our established commercial waveforms and modems.
LEO
Low-latency LEO satellite services
SES Space & Defense is the first COMSATCOM operator to integrate an all-orbit strategy. Gain the proven ability to operate, manage, and support multi-band, multi-orbit satellite networks enhanced through vendor-agnostic integration. As a value-added and authorized reseller of One Web Technology (OWT) and Starshield, SES Space & Defense’s portfolio provides full multi-orbit satellite solutions across LEO, MEO, and GEO. The incorporation of OWT and Starshield into SES’s existing MEO and GEO services increases the resiliency for continuous connectivity and mission-tailored performance.
The Power of Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)
Delivering MEO-empowered solutions
Why MEO?
When it comes to high-performance connectivity, there are four factors that only MEO can deliver: high throughput, predictable low-latency, high network availability, and flexibility.
Optimal Orbit
At an altitude 8000km above Earth, MEO is the ideal orbit for navigation and communication satellites. MEO is distanced far enough from the Earth's surface to provide coverage across 96% of the globe and low enough to guarantee low-latency and high throughput up to multiple gigabits of uncontended capacity.
Why Orbit Matters
The distance separating a satellite from Earth results in higher latency and can make a difference in the performance of critical government communications systems and applications.
How GEO, MEO, and LEO stack up:
three types of orbits
Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO)
Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)
Low Earth Orbit ( LEO)
GEO
36,000km
Medium latency (~700 msec)
Very large Earth view
Few fixed gateways
Stationary antennas (3 satellites for global coverage)
Proven, deployable technology
ngso MEO
~8,000km
Low latency (~150 msec)
Large Earth view
Several flexible gateways
1-hour slow tracking (6 satellites for coverage)
Proven, deployable technology
ngso LEO
~1,000km
Very low latency (~50 msec)
Small Earth view
Numerous local gateways
10-minute fast tracking (100's-1,000's needed for coverage)
Technology still in development for satellite internet
Geostationary (GEO) High Throughput Satellite
Global Reach with Superior Performance
Providing global reach with superior performance, Geostationary Earth Orbiting (GEO) High Throughput Satellites (HTS) deliver global coverage and robust Ku-band and Ka-band services leveraging flexible spot-beam technology, and when coupled with the O3b MEO constellation, we offer the industry’s only multi-orbit, multi-band offering that provides unprecedented network resiliency and intelligent, application-aware load balancing.
GovSat-1
Military grade resiliency with commercial innovation
Orbit
Geostationary orbit at 21.5° E
Coverage
Europe, Middle East, Africa, and South East Asia and substantial maritime coverage over the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas, as well as the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
Military Frequencies
Features high-power X-band, Military Ka-band, and an advanced Global X-band beam.
Resiliency
High-powered, fully steerable spot beams equipped with anti-jamming features and fully encrypted telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C).
Applications
Communications-on-the-move (COTM), Communication-on-the-pause (COTP), and Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR).
Hosted Payload Solutions
Providing a lower-cost, faster road to space for government and military
Space Data Relays
Space relay for C and Ka broadband
SES Space & Defense is implementing a space relay leveraging global C-band satellite coverage and high throughput Ka-band relay capability leveraging the O3b mPOWER MEO constellation.
This multi-band, multi-orbit approach enables NASA and the emerging space relay market, commercial and government users’ access to assured low-rate relay capability and high throughput, low-latency data relay capability utilizing proven radio frequency (RF) systems.
