SES GEO Ku-band satellites to support remotely piloted aircraft

SES Space & Defense has been awarded a U.S. Air Force (USAF) Air Combat Command (ACC) contract to help support the force’s airborne operations.

The company will provide geostationary (GEO) Ku-band satellite services to support the ACC’s remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) training and testing programme.

This will involve SES’s GEO fleet of satellites to provide ground-to-air and air-to-ground transmissions coverage over the continental United States, Hawaii, Alaska, and the Pacific Ocean for airborne operations. The company’s Global Network Operations Center will also provide network management and monitoring support.

“This is SES Space & Defense’s third contract iteration for the remotely piloted aircraft training and testing program, and it continues to be a great privilege serving the U.S. Air Forces’ Air Combat Command’s mission,” said the company’s President & CEO David Fields. “We look forward to continue delivering superior performance leveraging our GEO HTS (high-throughput satellites) in support of this effort.”

The multi-year contract is worth $46.8 million. The company has nearly 70 satellites operating in two different orbits: a 20 satellite constellation in MEO (Medium earth orbit) and 50 in GEO.

SES US subsidiary

SES Space & Defense is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Luxembourg-based SES, focused on building, managing, and supporting satellite network systems for the U.S. Government (it operates under a proxy board, enabling it to support classified projects).

For example, also last month it was awarded the pilot effort to provide the U.S. Army with Satellite Communications (SATCOM) as a Managed Service (SaaMS). This was under a $3.6 million ceiling blanket purchase agreement (BPA).

“This initiative will streamline commercially leased SATCOM network services to be flexible and tailored to changing mission needs,” said the company.

“The scope of the SaaMS Pilot encompasses turnkey, end-to-end managed subscription services. These services will facilitate connectivity to commercial teleports and internet services, augmenting units’ SATCOM capability across five diverse locations within three combatant commands: NORTHCOM, EUCOM, and USINDOPACOM.”

The contract was awarded to Global Enterprise Solutions (GES), which was acquired by SES in 2022 and is itself a wholly-owned subsidiary.

See also: European Investment Bank backs software-defined satellites for SES