SES Swaps SES-12 and SES-14 Launches

Today, on 28 August 2017, SES announced a change of launch vehicles and launch slots for its SES-12 and SES-14 satellites.

Under the new agreements, SES-12 will be launched on a Falcon 9 vehicle from SpaceX in the first quarter of 2018 while SES-14 will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket early in the first quarter of 2018.

The swap of launches aims to improve service quality and continuity for SES customers. Both SES-12 and SES-14 are using electric propulsion for orbit-raising and will enter into service some four to six months after launch.

SES-14, manufactured by Airbus Defense and Space, will be positioned at the 47.5 degrees West orbital slot. The different bands will support SES’s cable neighbourhood in the Americas, as well as the North Atlantic Region, and the Caribbean. SES-14 also carries the Global-Scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) as a hosted payload for NASA.

SES-12, a very large satellite also manufactured by Airbus Defense and Space, and will expand SES’s capabilities to provide direct-to-home (DTH) broadcasting, VSAT, Mobility and HTS data connectivity services in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region, including rapidly growing markets such as India and Indonesia. The satellite will replace NSS-6 at this location and will be co-located with SES-8.

As the largest satellite ever built for SES, SES-12 is capable of supporting requirements in multiple verticals from Cyprus in the West to Japan in the East, and from Russia in the North to Australia in the South.