SES has announced plans to launch a government-dedicated €225m (US$266m) communications satellite in late 2017 through a joint venture with the Luxembourg state.
The satellite fleet operator and Luxembourg’s government will each invest €50m into…
SES has announced plans to launch a government-dedicated €225m (US$266m) communications satellite in late 2017 through a joint venture with the Luxembourg state.
The satellite fleet operator and Luxembourg’s government will each invest €50m into the public-private partnership, with a bank loan from a consortium of Luxembourg banks financing the rest of the procurement and launch costs.
The spacecraft is targeting the 28.2E orbital slot held by SES, where it can cover Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific with X-band and military Ka-band frequencies.
As previously reported, it will help Luxembourg satisfy NATO membership obligations while also enabling the JV to sell capacity to other countries and institutional customers for defence and governmental applications.
“This new, ambitious public-private partnership demonstrates the importance of Luxembourg in the international space sector and the close and successful ties between SES and Luxembourg,” said Karim Michel Sabbagh, CEO of SES, which is based in Luxembourg.
“SES fully acknowledges the importance of the Luxembourg government’s participation in this future enterprise. As a commercial satellite operator, SES is ideally positioned to deliver its know-how to this new venture, serving a large range of future governmental and institutional customers, creating significant entrepreneurial value and return for these customers and for the Grand-Duchy.”
Etienne Schneider, Luxembourg’s deputy Prime Minister, added: “Emerging from the national space sector, this project is not only an important contribution of Luxembourg to European defence, but it further supports the government’s economic diversification policy in a key technology sector.”
Luxembourg has agreed to buy €10m worth of the satellite’s capacity every year for the next 10 years. It will pay its €50m share in annual instalments between 2015 and 2017.
SES said its investment obligations have already been included within existing capital expenditure projections.
