SES Launches Rapid Response Vehicle for Defence, Security and Humanitarian Missions

SES announced its new government product Rapid Response Vehicle (RRV), a SATCOM-enabled platform capable of providing high-speed connectivity and global communications services tailored to a broad range of commercial, civil, humanitarian and defence missions around the world.

The Rapid Response Vehicle is the world’s first mobile platform to offer collaborative communications technologies over multiple orbits and frequencies, including Ku-, Ka- and Military X- and Ka-bands, across SES’s GEO fleet and fibre-like Ka-band delivered over its MEO constellation. The versatile RRV can easily adapt with connectivity customised for specific scenarios and applications such as high-definition video conferencing, streaming, voice, GSM backhaul, high-speed broadband, and large data file transfers in locations where infrastructure is non-existent or destroyed. The RRV was recently showcased at the Humanitarian ICT Forum held in March in Mountain View, California.

“The Rapid Response Vehicle can provide multi-band, multi-orbit connectivity to support virtually any situation imaginable, anywhere. This includes missions related to border security, defence, peacekeeping, support for humanitarian operations and response to natural disasters, as well as commercial applications,” said Nicole Robinson, Corporate Vice President, Government Market Solutions at SES. “We are very proud to be at the forefront of technological advancements in rapid connectivity solutions, and are looking forward to continuing to deliver truly tailored offerings to our customers.”

The RRV solution is ‘plug-and-play’ and boasts modular features that can integrate and deploy a wide range of communication technologies and devices aboard a mobile vehicle. One example is SES’s Tactical Persistent Surveillance (TPS) ISR solution, based on Lighter-Than-Air (LTA) inflatable aerostat technology hosting advanced electro-optical (EO) sensor and communications payload options, which is designed to provide situational awareness for border and operations security, event monitoring and disaster response initiatives.

The RRV can also quickly launch a number of other platforms, including the SATMED telemedicine service. Other types of activities enabled by the RRV are ‘respond and recover’ missions to support disaster relief efforts, providing emergency wireless internet access for communities, reinforcing downed public infrastructure, providing IP backhaul for mobile networks and enabling long-term connectivity for agencies on the ground.

The RRV is equipped with wireless capabilities, including MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) SDR radio technology, which provides an expansive mesh type, frequency programmable, mobile communications platform to support private 3G / 4G LTE networks and government push to talk (“PTT”) frequencies.

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