World Satellite Business Week, organized by consulting firm Euroconsult, got off to a bang with a new contract for Thales Alenia Space on the first day, September 12, at 8:30 am: Thales made it official, announcing a partnership with operator SES to offer high-speed satellite Internet on airplanes, a service dubbed FlytLIVE and covering the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean.

Thales Alenia Space will build a telecom satellite for SES as part of this agreement, SES17, to be launched in 2020. It will use the Spacebus Neo platform, which has already won three contracts since 2015. More info: click here

Video: Jean-Loïc Galle about SES-17 communications satellite

Two days later, on September 14 at 10:00 am, Thales Alenia Space announced that it had signed the phase B contract with LeoSat Enterprises to develop a constellation of low Earth orbit (LEO) telecommunications satellites.

This constellation [which may have from 78 to 108 high-power satellites] will provide high-speed Internet services with low latency, along with secure connectivity and global coverage. The challenge in this type of constellation is to understand and apply not only the critical technologies involved, but also mass production methods.

LeoSat will be able to draw on Thales Alenia Space’s expertise in constellations [125 telecom satellites built for GlobalStar, O3b Networks and Iridium Next], along with new industrial methods already applied by the French-Italian joint venture: cobotics (collaborative robotics), which increases rates during the assembly, integration and test (AIT) phase, as well as the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components, enabling significant savings during production and integration. Also playing a role will be the optronics expertise of RUAG, a business line recently acquired by Thales Alenia Space, to ensure that the constellation features state-of-the-art inter-satellite link technology. More info: click here

These two contract announcements clearly reflect Thales Alenia Space’s complementary offerings in the satcom market, with solutions for both geostationary orbit and global constellations.

During the manufacturers’ panel discussion on “Revolution/Evolution”, Thales Alenia Space President and Chief Executive Officer Jean Loïc Galle shared his opinion that a revolution shouldn’t be a “one-shot” deal, but rather provide long-term support in addressing customers’ evolving needs, whether for applications, technologies, diversification, industrial processes, flexibility or innovation. And that, in a nutshell, is what Thales Alenia Space does!

Coyrights: artistic views © Thales Alenia Space - video © Thales/Xavier Audu