In a brief pre-launch media meeting held today, Steve Collar, the CEO of SES Networks, announced the launch of 03b mPower satellites. According to the CEO, the satellites were designed to address the limitations of switching from ten analogue beams to an unlimited number of digitalised beams, the problem of flexibility and simultaneously responding to consumer’s needs and the challenge of autocorrecting the beam’s system in case of a technical failure.

This recent addition to SES’ satellite capability is expected to improve the company’s relevance in providing near-complete global coverage and maintaining a wide range of connectivity services, including cellular backhaul to remote rural locations and simultaneous international IP trunking, to enterprises (mining, oil and gas), telecommunication operators, media companies, internet service providers and governmental organisations.

With the launch of 03b mPower satellites, there are now 5,000 electronic beams per satellite instead of the traditional ten beams, and 50,000 beams to cater for customer needs as well as an unprecedented connectivity speed of around 10 megabits per second to 10 gigabits per second to deliver high-end infrastructure services with a single link. In addition, the SES space brain, Hulk, will operate the network autonomously.

Furthermore, 03b mPower satellites are designed to be an open architecture, a platform created to promote innovative solutions for the industry and encourage vendors and partners to invest. Correspondingly, the satellites possess massive return bandwidth that enables easy access and gathering of big data and gateways for customers to access and create a personal touch to the satellite systems.

In addition, SES has formed a partnership with Microsoft, created a gateway and built a communication system with Microsoft data centres, bringing customers closer to cloud computing services to access stored data and develop insights to be harnessed in their respective fields. 

According to Steve Collar, 11 satellites were manufactured with Boeing; two were launched on Falcon 9 Rocket owned by SpaceX. “Six satellites will be launched in the coming months, with an additional three launches scheduled towards the end of 2023. Nonetheless, these satellite constellations are scaleable and more will be launched,” concluded Steve Collar.