Meet SES

People all over the world are about to have their connectivity experience improved because of the work we did together.

SES was one of SnT’s first industry partners. They deliver amazing experiences everywhere on earth by distributing the highest quality video content and providing seamless connectivity. As the leader in global content connectivity solutions, SES is the only provider that operates both Geostationary (GEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites providing a unique combination of global coverage and high performance, including the commercially-proven, low-latency O3b constellation.

Ruy Pinto, the Chief Technology Officer of SES, reflects on the partnership and how such initiatives enable the company to make a difference on a global scale.

What attracted SES to set up a partnership with SnT ten years ago?

Our business relies on the technology we use to meet the market needs, so we’re always looking into innovations that can be turned into better services for our customers, as well as new solutions and business models. This made a partnership with SnT a natural fit, as it provides access to cutting-edge academic research. Signing a partnership agreement was only the formalisation of a long-standing relationship that existed since 2004 with some of SnT’s founding researchers.

Ten years later, how have you applied the partnership’s research results?

We have successfully launched all 20 O3b MEO satellites and have been commercialising it since 2014. We are now on the cusp of launching our next generation system, O3b mPOWER, which leveraged the technologies we studied in system contexts with SnT. Built on the success of SES’s current O3b system, the O3b mPOWER communications system comprises an initial constellation of seven high-throughput and low-latency satellites and extensive ground infrastructure. The global terabit-level scalable constellation will enable the delivery of high-bandwidth, low latency data connectivity services for markets including telecom and cloud, communications-on-the-move and government.

The O3b mPOWER system is built on satellite beamforming technology, which we previously studied in a systems context with SnT. The work we have done in cooperation with SnT laid the foundation to accurately study the system benefits of flexible payloads such as those found in O3b mPOWER. The academic research is used to prioritise technical roadmaps, benchmark key technologies and inform the way we designed next-generation constellations. Now people all over the world are about to have their connectivity experience improved because of the work we did together.

How has the partnership evolved over the past ten years?

The growth of SnT over the past decade has been nothing but impressive, as they went from a small group of people to an internationally recognised expert in satellite communications. If you go to the European Space Agency, or even to the US, people in the satellite industry know SnT’s research. The work we have jointly developed has led to an impact for our business, and we look forward to another ten years of pushing satellite technology forward •