Boeing delivers first O3b mPOWER satellites to SES ahead of December launch

Boeing delivered the first two of 11 O3b mPOWER broadband satellites to SES over the weekend, the company announced in a press release.

The satellites are scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, FL next week aboard a Falcon 9 rocket and will climb to medium earth orbit to provide low-latency communications with what Boeing says are greater than 5,000 steerable spot beams.

“Delivering performance above all, O3b mPOWER will offer connectivity services to government organizations and enterprises based in the most remote regions,” SES Chief Technology Officer Ruy Pinto said in the release. “In times of natural disasters, when networks are disrupted, O3b mPOWER’s low-latency services can quickly restore critical communications networks.”

Unlike fixed-beam satellites or proliferated constellations designed to cover wider regions, the mPOWER spot beams can be repositioned in real time in response to user terminal data, Boeing said in the release.

The satellites are based on Boeing’s 702X space bus platform and are hardened against radiation. Boeing is continuing production, integration and testing of the nine remaining satellites, the release says.

SES plans to launch six more satellites in 2023 and send up the remaining three in 2024, SpaceNews reported last month. According to a company spokesman, Boeing is “in advanced spacecraft integration stages for both the third and fourth O3b mPOWER satellites” and plans to deliver them in the first quarter of 2023.