O3b MEO

Initially planned to launch in 2010,[3] the first four O3b satellites reached orbit on a Soyuz-2 / Fregat-MT rocket by Arianespace on 25 June 2013.[4][5] After discovering a hardware defect in the initial satellites, O3b postponed the planned September 2013 launch of four additional satellites so repairs could be made.[6] The second four satellites were launched by the same type of rocket from the Space Center in French Guiana, on 10 July 2014[7] and the O3b system started full commercial service on September 1, 2014.[8]

The third launch of four took place in December 2014, bringing the satellite constellation to 12 satellites.[9] Three years later, four additional satellites were launched on 9 March 2018 on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the Centre Spatial Guyanais.[10] In December 2018, Thales Alenia Space said that tests on the final four O3b satellites would be completed by the end of January 2019[11] and the four satellites were successfully launched on 4 April 2019.[12]

In 2010, operators in the Cook Islands,[13] Pakistan[14] and Nigeria[15] were among the first to prebook capacity on the O3b constellation to serve their respective markets.

In 2010, O3b announced the selection of Europe Media Port to be the first provider of Gateway Teleport services for O3b's global network[16] and a contract with Viasat for the production and installation of Ka-band infrastructure.[17]

In July 2014, SES Government Solutions, a subsidiary of (then O3b investor, now owner) SES, received approval to offer O3b services on their General Services Administration (GSA) schedule allowing SES GS to be the first distribution partner to offer O3b capability directly to the US Government.[18]

In November 2014, MS Quantum of the Seas became the first cruise ship to provide fast internet to guests through O3b Networks. The service is branded "Voom" by its cruise line, Royal Caribbean International and it was subsequently rolled out to every ship in their fleet.[19][20]

In August 2015, SES subsidiary, SES Government Solutions agreed on a one-year contract with US government scientific agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to supply O3b services and ground equipment to the National Weather Service Office in American Samoa, expanding NOAA's broadband connectivity outside the continental United States to provide weather, water, and climate data, and forecasts and warnings to American Samoa.[21]

In August 2016, SES Government Solutions announced a contract to provide O3b Networks' high throughput, low latency satellite communications for a US Department of Defense end-user. The agreement is for a 365 days-per-year service consisting of a full-duplex symmetric 155 Mbit/s link, gateway access, a transportable 2.4 metre terminal, terrestrial backhaul, and maintenance and installation services, with a latency of under 200 milliseconds per round trip. The contract also provides for additional capacity to meet surge requirements.[22]

In September 2019, SES became a Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute services partner to provide dedicated, private network connectivity from sea vessels, aircraft, and industrial or government sites anywhere in the world to the Azure cloud computing service, via both its geostationary satellites and O3b MEO satellites.[23]

In September 2020, SES and Microsoft announced that SES was the medium Earth orbit connectivity partner for the Microsoft Azure Orbital ground station service that enables network operators to control their satellite operations and capacity from within the Azure cloud computing service. Under their agreement, SES and Microsoft will jointly invest in Azure Orbital ground stations for the MEO and Earth Observation segments, initially in the US, which will be installed and managed by SES. Also, satellite telemetry, tracking and control systems and data ground stations for the forthcoming O3b mPOWER satellites will be located with Microsoft's Azure edge sites to provide O3b mPOWER customers with ‘one-hop’ access to Azure cloud services.[24][25]

The satellites are deployed in a circular orbit along the equator at an altitude of 8063 km (medium Earth orbit) at a velocity of approximately 11,755 miles per hour (18,918 km/h), each making 5 orbits a day.[26] Due to problems with a component of the first four satellites launched, three of those four have been placed on standby.[27]

Each satellite is equipped with twelve fully steerable Ka-band antennas (two beams for gateways, ten beams for remotes) that use 4.3 GHz of spectrum (2 × 216 MHz per beam) with a proposed throughput of 1.6 Gbit/s per beam (800 Mbit/s per direction),[28] resulting in a total capacity of 16 Gbit/s per satellite. Each beam's footprint measures 700 km in diameter.[29] O3b claims a mouth-to-ear one-way latency of 179 milliseconds for voice communication, and an end-to-end round-trip latency of 140 ms for data services. The maximum throughput per TCP connection is 2.1 Mbit/s.[30] For maritime applications, O3b claims a round-trip latency of 140 ms, and connectivity speeds of over 500 Mbit/s.[31]

The satellites are powered by gallium arsenide solar arrays and lithium-ion batteries[32] and weigh approximately 700 kilograms (1,500 lb) each.[4]

The satellites were constructed by Thales Alenia Space, a division of Thales Group.[33] The first satellite (PFM) was built in the Cannes Mandelieu Space Center, while the rest of the constellation was assembled, integrated and tested in Thales Alenia Space Italy's Roman facilities.

In September 2017, SES announced the next generation of O3b satellites and placed an order for an initial seven from Boeing Satellite Systems using a new satellite platform based on Boeing's 702 line of scalable buses. Expected to launch in 2021, the O3b mPOWER constellation of medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellites for broadband internet services will "be able to deliver anywhere from hundreds of megabits to 10 gigabits to any ship at sea" through 30,000 spot beams. Software-defined routing will direct traffic between the mPOWER MEO satellites and SES' geostationary fleet.[34] In August 2020 SES contracted Boeing to build four additional O3b mPOWER satellites and SpaceX was contracted for an additional two launches, to make four launches for the whole O3b mPOWER constellation in 2021–2024.[35][36]

[37]

O3b MEO is currently the only high-throughput satellite (HTS) system for internet services to use the medium Earth orbit; most other existing and proposed systems use satellites in either geosynchronous orbit or low Earth orbit (LEO). Although previous satellite internet services primarily used geosynchronous satellites (SES has four geostationary HTS in orbit – Astra 2E, SES-12, SES-14 and SES-15), demand for increased bandwidth and for lower latency has shifted the focus for HTS to lower orbits.[38] The lower the altitude of the orbit, the closer the satellite is to the Earth and the lower the latency and path losses (enabling lower ground station and satellite power, and costs for the same throughput)[39] The propagation delay for a round-trip internet protocol transmission via a geosynchronous satellite can be over 550 ms, and such latency is the bane of digital connectivity, in particular for automated stock trades, hardcore gaming and Skype video chats.[40][41] So, many proposed non-geosynchronous satellite internet services have adopted a low Earth orbit of under 2000 km altitude[41] where latency can be as little 40ms,[42] and by 2018 more than 18,000 new LEO satellites had been proposed to launch by 2025.[43]

However, a lower orbit also has drawbacks; satellites move faster relative to the ground and can ‘see’ a smaller area of the Earth, and so for continuous widespread access require a constellation of many satellites, with complex constellation management and tracking by the ground stations.[38][41] Medium Earth orbit, although higher in altitude than LEO is nevertheless much lower than geosynchronous orbit and so shares many of the advantages of LEO while reducing its drawbacks: [44][39][45][40]

• Latency as low as 125ms – longer than LEO but substantial improvement over GEO satellites
• Longer orbital period than LEO – a smaller constellation needed for continuous ‘visibility’
• Cheaper and simpler telemetry, tracking and control systems than LEO
• Higher ‘look angle’ from the ground than LEOs
• Longer service life expectancy than LEO satellites
• Reduced Doppler shift problem than LEO
• Less orbital overcrowding and space debris than LEO

• SES S.A.
• O3b Networks
• O3b mPOWER