LUXEMBOURG – On Thursday, March 5, SES (Euronext Paris: SESG) announced that its newest pair of Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites has officially entered commercial service. The activation of O3b mPOWER satellites 9 and 10, launched by SpaceX in July 2025, brings the operational second-generation MEO fleet to 10 units, significantly expanding high-throughput, low-latency capacity for global government and enterprise customers.
Context: Scaling the MEO Ecosystem
The entry into service for satellites 9 and 10 follows SES’s Full Year 2025 financial results, where the company reported €1.8 billion in new business wins and the successful consolidation of Intelsat. The O3b mPOWER system is a core pillar of SES’s multi-orbit strategy, offering fiber-like performance to mobile and fixed locations where terrestrial infrastructure is absent.
This operational milestone comes just 24 hours after SES utilized the O3b mPOWER network to provide the first MEO-based humanitarian connectivity at the Farchana refugee settlement in Chad, demonstrating the system’s immediate utility in mission-critical scenarios.
Technical Performance and Flexibility
Built by Boeing on the 702X bus, the O3b mPOWER satellites feature fully software-defined payloads. Key capabilities now available with the expanded fleet include:
- Dynamic Resource Allocation: The ability to actively allot power and bandwidth in real-time to meet fluctuating user demand.
- Terabit-Level Capacity: The expanded 10-satellite constellation supports massive data backhaul for cruise ships, commercial aviation, and military operations.
- Resilient Architecture: Enhanced security and interference-mitigation protocols, making the system suitable for contested government environments.
Executive Commentary
“With 10 of 13 satellites launched and three more scheduled later this year, we’re on track to fully deploy O3b mPOWER and bring a further significant increase in capacity by 2027,” said Adel Al-Saleh, CEO of SES. “That growth will help us bring resilient, mission-critical connectivity to more communities, industries and governments—where it matters most.”
Roadmap to Full Deployment
The remaining three satellites (11, 12, and 13) are currently in the final stages of manufacturing and are scheduled for launch in the second half of 2026. This final tranche will complete the initial constellation, enabling SES to realize the system’s full global throughput by 2027.
Parallel to the O3b mPOWER expansion, SES is developing meoSphere, its next-generation multi-mission MEO network. This future architecture is being built in collaboration with “New Space” partners including Impulse Space, Infinite Orbits, and K2 Space to ensure long-term scalability and orbit-to-ground integration.
