Preparing to offer meoSphere Ka-band Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) plus Ka- or Ku-band Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite-powered inflight connectivity from 2030, SES reveals it is advancing work on a multi-band, multi-orbit, multi-beam electronically steerable antenna (ESA) solution to support the hybrid service for operators.

“We are working on a proof of concept. There will be a ground-based demonstration, and I don’t have firm dates, but I’m pushing our team to complete that ground-based POC this calendar year. I don’t know if we can do it but we’re going to try,” SES senior product executive Blane Boynton revealed to RGN at SATShow in Washington D.C.

“And we’ve selected the technology. It’s on order, and if, when we wring the technical risk out of that solution, our goal then would be to place that solution on our test aircraft within two quarters.”

Notably, he says SES is:

taking the model that we used principally for the development of the current multi-orbit ESA and we’re going to run it again and we’re going to see if we can quickly bring a multi-orbit, multi-band solution to the market. It will be an ESA technology; think of a single aperture, multi-orbit, multi-beam.

Perhaps it’s unsurprising, then, to learn that SES’s work is very much in lock step with how longtime partner Gilat Satellite Networks sees IFC evolving.

Gilat provides the Stellar Blu single-beam, Ku-band multi-orbit LEO/GEO ESA for SES’s current ESA-based IFC solution (as flying on Air Canada, American Airlines, Avianca and others).

When asked if Gilat could envisage an iteration of the Stellar Blu ESA supporting meoSphere MEO/LEO IFC, Ron Levin, who serves as president of Gilat Commercial Division told RGN at SATShow that an iteration could technically be “Ka or Ku or Ku/Ka. And Ku/Ka, there’s multiple flavors of that.”

Indeed, Levin believes a multi-band configuration for any multi-beam hardware will be the “magic solution” for antenna technology.

Is Gilat hopeful that its relationship with SES will remain in play as the satellite operator and aero ISP graduates to MEO/LEO?

“Look, SES is our largest customer. We plan to keep it that way,” Levin said.

Staying flexible

For SES, meoSphere is “an ambitious undertaking” that will “absolutely” differentiate SES from other players in the space, Boynton said.

By definition, the MEO/LEO IFC plan does, however, “require all of our aircraft to be Ka-equipped in time, right? So, if or when we find a bridging technology that can be in Ku- and Ka- at the same time, I can start deploying that immediately. So, I can be pre-wired for Ka.”

He continued: “Also, it opens up the opportunity for partnership [with other satellite operators], if we jointly decide that’s the right thing to do commercially. So, if we needed to partner with other Ka-band LEOs because I’m going to have an antenna that’s capable.

“Now I’m not saying we’re doing that. I’m just saying our job is to provide, we keep saying the Swiss Army Knife. It’s maybe a little cliche, but our job is to provide the most capable, most flexible terminal possible for Mike [DeMarco] to build his [aviation] business. And we’re getting there.”

In an extensive follow-up interview at the Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX) in Hamburg, SES executives spoke of the hybrid terminal’s inherent flexibility, both in terms of being capable of supporting geostationary (GEO) service as and when desired (in certain parts of the world) and the possibility of forging various LEO partnerships.

Already a Eutelsat OneWeb LEO service distribution partner in aero for its current multi-orbit ESA-based IFC solution, SES has a good relationship with the Ku-band LEO satellite operator. OneWeb is also prepping to start launching its Gen 2 network.

Telesat’s Ka-band Lightspeed LEO constellation, meanwhile, is also expected to be available in 2028.

Have any conversations begun on what a LEO pairing might look like for mesoSphere, RGN asked?

“It’s early days. But we knew we had to design something that was flexible,” replied director of program management Rob Baird. “Just think about China. Eventually, you’re going to need a LEO solution for that part of the world. We’ve got to be flexible. We’ve got to build the hardware that is capable.”

SES’s next-gen ESA plan also meshes nicely with the linefit, supplier-furnished HBCplus modular offering that Airbus intends to bring to market in 2028 to support multi-band, multi-beam, and, at least insofar as SES’s capabilities are concerned, multi-orbit IFC. Eutelsat OneWeb, China’s Spacesail and Telesat Lightspeed are all participants in the program..

It is also perhaps notable that Airbus used an image of a MEO + LEO pairing when explaining HBCplus modular at AIX.

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Featured image credited to istock.com/Pollyana Ventura