SES has announced the procurement of three new satellites, SES-14, SES-15 and SES-16/GovSat, all of which will be launched in 2017.
The three new satellites will be manufactured by Airbus Space and Defence, Boeing and Orbital AKT, respectively. The orders will take the number of satellites currently under procurement to seven, six of which are delivering incremental growth capacity.
“The new spacecraft will support our growth and add significant high-power capacity to all four key strategic business verticals – video, data, mobility and government,” said Karim Michel Sabbagh, President and CEO of SES. “These fleet investments – all delivered within SES’s forecast CapEx envelope –enable us to differentiate our service offering in our target markets and set the foundation for continued growth. They will allow us to capture the significant potential of numerous vibrant regions and market segments, including Direct-to-Home (DTH) in Latin America, and mobility in the aeronautical and maritime sector throughout the Americas and the North Atlantic, as well as powerful end-to-end solutions for governments, defence and security.”
SES-14 and SES-15 are both hybrid satellites, using Ku-, Ka- and – in the case of SES-14 – also C-band in wide-beam and high-throughput (HTS) technology and an electric propulsion system that significantly enhances the satellites’ economic efficiency thanks to the enhanced payload that can be carried as a result of the reduction in fuel mass.
SES-16/GovSat is a multi-mission satellite with high-powered and fully steerable beams for government missions. It will be owned and operated by LuxGovSat, a new joint venture between SES and the Luxembourg Government.
