SES has reinstated its filing for its Cleosat Low Earth Orbit (LEO) scheme with the International Telecommunications Union.
The filing, originally made in 2015 and since expired, was reinstated following a request made on January 7th. It was first reported by Advanced Television and SatNews.
The scheme refers to a plan for a L and S-band 62-satellite constellation primarily orbited at an elevation of 850 kilometers with two satellites above and below the other 60 at 533kms and at 8,062kms - a medium-Earth orbit height. The proposed constellation would use multiple frequency bands from around 1.5 to 29GHz.
SES’ history is in geostationary satellites but also operates a sizeable constellation, the O3b network, comprising 20 medium-Earth-orbit satellites using 17-19GHz frequencies for high-speed broadband for enterprise and government customers across eight orbital planes.
The Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA) alleged the expiry of the initial filing was driven by administrative delays from the Luxembourg Government. The ITU requires registered satellite systems to abide by strict “bringing into use” rules, meaning systems must come online within seven years, or see their filings expire.
In 2022, the LSA requested a delay to the rule to establish Cleosat, but the ITU denied it. 48 hours before Cleosat was set to be removed from the ITU register, the Luxembourg government stated that Cleosat’s radio frequencies had been brought into use on May 10 despite the satellites not yet being in orbit, which appeared to buy time to negotiate a more formal reinstatement of its filing.
“SES [re]applied for this filing through the Luxembourg government because it recognizes the potential of direct-to-handheld 5G satellite connectivity in the years to come,” said an SES spokesperson in a 2022 statement. “We haven’t made any decision to significantly invest in this technology at this stage, and will in the coming months do our due diligence of assessing the market and business plans.”
Another LEO entrant?
No official disclosures around Cleosat and SES’ ambitions in LEO have surfaced, but prevailing opinion suggests they intend to enter LEO, making them the only operator to possess satellites in all three significant orbits and address the direct-to-device market as AST SpaceMobile and Lynk Global are.
In late 2024 comments by SES’ senior vice president of future business and innovation Mohammad Marashi suggested change was in the air.
“We are changing our approach, in design, procurement and accelerating our approach to next-generation needs and constellations,” he told Silicon Valley Space Week in Mountain View California on October 21. “Our aim is to reduce the ‘cost per bit’ and how we can develop these technologies for multi-orbit or multi-band usage. We recognize our intention is not going to be straightforward and would need collaboration.”
Marashi touted SES' continued services to 6,400 TV channels with 363 million viewers in 130 countries, but struck a forward focus by emphasizing its investment into startups, co-developing new products, and collaborating with their customers to innovate.
During the Keynote he showcased SES’ EAGLE-1 prototype LEO satellite, developed with the assistance of the European Space Agency, which he called a radical solution featuring quantum key distribution to deliver secure transmission that would be safe from quantum decryption.
