SES O3b mPOWER constellation. Photo: SES

NATO awarded satellite operator SES its first contract for Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite services under a partnership established in 2022. 

The NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), announced the MEO Global Services (MGS) award on Sept. 10. Luxembourg and the U.S. will leverage SES’s MEO services to carry out naval, air, and ground communications missions around the globe. 

This comes after the U.S. and Luxembourg established a partnership in October of 2022 called the Global Commercially Contracted Satellite Communications Support Partnership (GCC SATCOM SP) to start a new era of space cooperation within NATO. The partnership allows for “pooling and sharing” of space capabilities among NATO members. 

The MGS program was originally founded by Luxembourg and the United States is open to NATO Allies and partners. MGS is an outline agreement over three years with two additional one-year options. 

Last year, Luxembourg’s Parliament approved 195 million euros ($215 million) over 10 years for the MGS program. 

“As new nations join the GCCSATCOM SP, they will also be able to leverage MGS, which simultaneously supports secure sovereign networks and enables coalition operations among allies when required,” commented NSPA General Manager Stacy Cummings. 

MGS participating Nations can request managed service packages, O3b mPOWER terminals, and even build their own network of sovereign gateways. MGS uses as baseline 10 Gbps of O3b mPOWER capacity.

O3b mPOWER is SES’s second-generation MEO constellation. The fleet currently consists of six satellites which entered service in April of this year. SES recently confirmed it remains on track for the seventh and eighth satellites to launch at the end of this year, followed by three more in 2025 and another two in 2026. 

“The NSPA contract vehicle accelerates government access to secure high-performance satcom innovation,” commented Adel Al-Saleh, CEO of SES. “We developed O3b mPOWER with the government’s mission critical connectivity needs in mind and have also been working closely with the NATO nations, to make sure that they get the necessary performance, reliability, security and control from day one.”