A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will put the satellites into medium Earth orbit (MEO), 8,000 km from Earth, from where they will provide low-latency, high-throughput connectivity to SES’s customers.
Ruy Pinto, CTO at SES, said: “SES’s O3b mPower system is a true game-changer and will transform the way people think about connectivity. Delivering performance above all, O3b mPower will offer connectivity services to government organisations and enterprises based in the most remote regions. In times of natural disasters, when networks are disrupted, O3b mPower’s low-latency services can quickly restore critical communications networks.”
SES plans a total of 11 O3b mPower satellites, to add to the existing fleet of O3b satellites – an abbreviation that originally stood for “other three billion”.
The software will allow SES to reposition its beams based on real-time data from SES customers’ terminals, said Luxembourg-based SES.
