Luxembourg Announces Intent
to Leverage SES’s O3b mPOWER for Europe and NATO
23 February 2023
The Government of
Luxembourg unveiled its intent to leverage
SES’s high-performance, second-generation Medium
Earth Orbit (MEO) system – O3b mPOWER – as a
critical resilient satcom infrastructure for
Luxembourg, its partners and NATO in the areas of
defence and security, disaster recovery and more,
SES announced today.
In a press conference,
Luxembourg Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of
Defence, François Bausch said that the Luxembourg
Government is proud to be utilising highly
innovative satellite technology that was developed
in the country by its leading space player, SES. The
programme – MEO Global Services (MGS) – valued at
€195 million over 10 years will authorise, when
passed by Luxembourg parliament, the acquisition and
operation of O3b mPOWER services. In late 2022,
Luxembourg and the U.S. entered into a support
partnership with the aim of commercially contracting
satellite communications capabilities through the
NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA). The MGS
programme will be realised through this partnership.
The O3b mPOWER MEO system that
SES began launching in 2022 brings unrivalled
performance for a wide range of sovereign government
missions spanning defence, disaster recovery,
operations, and community building and welfare for
deployed staff. With its unprecedented levels of
flexibility, the unique system provides guaranteed
performance and uncontended connectivity services
for dedicated, protected, carrier-grade data,
unlocking full access to real-time information,
high-resolution images and video, cloud applications
and secure networks.
The open architecture and
unique security features of the O3b mPOWER system
enables
governments to operate sovereign gateways and
networks on a global basis. It can also be easily
integrated into existing governments' satcom
capabilities, permitting multi-orbit resiliency to
NATO and allies’ systems and elevating them to the
next level of performance and security.
“This ambitious new project
carried out through the NSPA will consolidate
Luxembourg’s position as a reliable partner in
space. The satellite communication capabilities of
SES’s O3b mPOWER will reinforce Euro-Atlantic joint
deterrence and defence. The aim is to support our
Allies, the EU Member States and the international
organisations of which Luxembourg is a member,” said
Minister Bausch. “We will increase the resilience,
flexibility and connectivity of our satcom
capabilities while creating synergies through
cooperation with nations who share our values.”
“We are proud to support the
Luxembourg Government’s space defence strategy and
leverage the unique space-based capabilities of SES
to enable greater cooperation between Luxembourg and
its partners,” said Steve Collar, CEO of SES. “O3b
mPOWER has been designed with the unique needs of
governments firmly in mind and brings unprecedented
levels of guaranteed performance to support defence,
security and sovereign networks as well as disaster
recovery and response for a safer and more secure
Europe and beyond.”
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