With Intelsat buy, SES targets European defense market

SMD 2025 — Having wrapped up its $3.1 billion acquisition of Intelsat General last month, Luxembourg-based satellite communications (SATCOM) firm SES Global is setting its sights on expanding its footprint in the European defense market, according to a top executive.

“The geopolitical environment … definitely since last year, makes it that European nations and other nations … have seen that there is a need for also looking at their own more sovereign elements when addressing SATCOMS and other services over satellite,” Philippe Glaesener, head of SES Space & Defence, told Breaking Defense July 29 in the run up to the annual Space & Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Ala.

“So, SES and Intelsat together, as of course now as you as you can imagine, [have] a way large inventory of satellites, but also a way larger inventory of ground networks, of teleports, of fibers, and therefore we are able to be way better [as] one-stop-shop now to the various armies that we have around the globe.”

SES closed the acquisition of Intelsat on July 17, giving the company a combined fleet of 120 satellites: 90 in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO), 45 of which were Intelsat’s; and 30 in medium Earth orbit (MEO). Of the MEO satellites, 10 are SES’s latest model O3b mPower birds. Those satellites are built by Boeing, and sport higher throughput than SES’s first generation O3b birds, as well as the capability to link to aircraft, ships and/or ground vehicles on the move to transmit intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, according to officials from both companies.

Glaesener explained that while “some larger armies will be able to invest into own systems, into own ground networks, into own end-to-end solutions,” the militaries of many smaller countries in Europe simply won’t have the monetary and human resources to take that route. Those nations, he said, then may instead “look at the commercial market and line up and try to create sovereign networks, as sovereign as possible, maybe with one of the big commercial players that are around.”

And with the acquisition of Intelsat, SES is now one of those big players, Glaesener said. In particular, the SES’s new multi-orbit footprint — which also includes as a set of partnerships with low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite operators — can provide the resiliency military users are increasingly concerned about in the face of growing on-orbit threats.

“If you discuss with an increasing number of armies, space has become first, a pillar of their new armies. So on top of air, ground and also sea … they want to be in space. But not only do they want to be in space, they want to be in resilient space, meaning they want to have access to every orbit, to every network, in order to be able to actually switch between orbits, between systems, and create a reliable network, a resilient network that goes beyond the single satellite or single terminal,” he said.

According to the press release announcing the closing of the Intelsat deal, SES now will be able to “deliver connectivity solutions utilising complementary spectrum bands including C-, Ku-, Ka-, Military Ka-, X-band, and Ultra High Frequency.”

But just as importantly, Glaesener said, is SES’s wide network of ground stations that allows the company to offer defense departments their own protected data downlinks with the ability to re-route traffic in case of interference.

“We have probably now one of the most performant ground networks of all commercial satellite operators worldwide. And this is something also that customers value a lot because, again, of the resiliency, because of the options to reroute traffic, depending, on the on the need that is expressed in a normal way of working, or in maybe an emergency situation,” he said.

SES is also expanding its collaborative military satellite communications program with the government of Luxembourg, that also is providing capacity to a number of NATO allies and the US. The partners launched a first GovSat bird in 2018, and on July 24 announced that they plan to develop a second satellite with improved capabilities.

“The state-of-the-art GovSat-2 satellite will extend the coverage and scale of GovSat, and is designed to address the needs of defence users at the highest Security and Service Assurance Level. The satellite will add new ultra-high frequency (UHF) channels, X- and military Ka-band, and will include other security features such as dedicated hardening, an advanced anti-jamming system, and embedded geolocation,” according to the announcement.

While the European defense market is a key target for SES’s planned growth, company also continuing its push into the US — on Monday announcing that it’s American arm, SES Space & Defense, has been awarded a five-year “Sustainment Tactical Network (STN) contract” to provide the US Army with satellite communications services.

Under the $89.6 million agreement, “the initiative will support strategic long-haul network transport and base-support communications for Combat Service Support, Department of Defense (DoD) programs, and additional U.S. Government agencies,” the announcement said. The Ku-band GEO satellite service is being delivered with the support of the Space Forces Commercial Satellite Communications Office.