Expanding the capabilities for SES across Latin America will be the mission of the company's SES-10 satellite.
SES and SpaceX have announced an agreement wherein the SES-10 satellite will be launched via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. SES-10 will head into a geostationary orbit and will be positioned at 67 degrees West, pursuant to an agreement with the Andean Community that is comprised of Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador and Peru. The satellite will be used for the Simón Bolivar 2 network.
With a Ku-band payload of 55 36 MHz transponder equivalents, of which 27 are incremental, the multi-mission spacecraft is the first SES satellite entirely dedicated to Latin America and will replace the capacity currently provided by SES’s AMC-3 and AMC-4 satellites at that location. Additional capacity will also be afforded to Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The high-powered, tailored and flexible beams will provide DTH broadcasting, enterprise and mobility services.
The SES-10 satellite. Photo courtesy of SES.
SES-10 is being built by Airbus Defence and Space and is based on the Eurostar E3000 platform. The satellite will use an electric plasma propulsion system for on-orbit maneuvers and a chemical system for initial orbit raising and some on-orbit actions.
According to Martin Halliwell, the Chief Technology Officer at SES, the firm will be the first customer to launch on SpaceX's first ever mission using a flight-proven rocket. A new era of spaceflight will be opened up through the employment of reusable rockets, making space access more efficient in terms of cost and manifest management.
Adding her thoughts, the President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX said that re-launching a rocket that has already delivered spacecraft to orbit is an important milestone on the path to complete and rapid reusability.