SES announced the launch of its seventh and eighth O3b mPOWER satellites, lifted into space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on December 17.

The new satellites will join the first six O3b mPOWER spacecraft already operating at medium Earth orbit (MEO), expanding the constellation’s capacity.

The seventh and eighth satellites feature redesigned payload power modules and will enhance SES’s second-generation MEO system, supporting high throughput and low latency services at scale.

“O3b mPOWER is our most powerful, technically advanced, flexible satellite constellation in space. As we increase the number of satellites in our constellation, we also exponentially increase the capacity and efficiency of our network. Ever since the start of service of O3b mPOWER earlier this year, we have seen how it has become an integral part of the connectivity experience of our customers. We have also learned a lot and have put all of those insights to work as we progress in our innovation journey to scale up our services and meet even the most sophisticated requirements of our customers,” said Adel Al-Saleh, CEO of SES. 

  The O3b mPOWER system includes 13 high-throughput, low-latency satellites and extensive ground infrastructure. The remaining five satellites are currently being manufactured and are set for launch within the next 18 months.