[Satellite News 04-26-11] SES broke ground on its new satellite control facility and business center in Betzdorf, Luxembourg, which includes infrastructure that will support its investment in O3b Networks and extend its orbital arc over Europe to cover positions from 62 degrees West to 70 degrees East.
    With SES simultaneously expanding its global presence in a variety of untouched markets, the operator said its 34 million euro ($49.7 million) investment for a facility to manage its growth was well spent. The SES construction project was supported by additional contributions from the Luxembourg National and Betzdorf Municipal governments and included a new technical building to handle future plans for SES’ satellite fleet and antennae field expansions. SES also will build a new 3,500 square meter business center for developing SES divisions and hosting third-party activities on the Betzdorf Mediaport.
    The new facilities, however, will see SES develop its key role as O3b financier and business partner by hosting the start-up company’s Satellite Operations Center (SOC) infrastructure. O3b’s Mid-Earth orbit constellation consists of eight initial spacecraft, which will be flown out of Betzdorf starting in 2013.
    SES CEO Romain Bausch said the operator’s stake in O3b depends on its ability to develop strong partnerships and service networks in emerging markets. “For the next four to five years, we will add 20 percent capacity to our overall fleet. Around 80 percent to 90 percent of this new capacity will serve emerging markets. We also see really good demand for the O3b capacity under construction. What is a little bit of a concern is the political situation in some markets in Africa and North Africa. We see some potential investors in the media field hesitating right now because of the political situation.”
    SES World Skies CEO Robert Bednarek, whose company recently commissioned the SES 8 satellite to bring more transponders to DTH markets in Africa, previously told Satellite News that the company’s commitment to O3b was driven by the operator’s desire to overcome business-hampering capacity constraints.
    “The demand is there and it is sustainable. That is why we are committed to continuing to replace and expand our fleet. The main problem we have with our fleet is that we have bandwidth shortages on one side and we have excess bandwidth in other places,” said Bednarek. “When you build satellites, you have to guess where the market demand will be 10 years from now. The ability of O3b to move bandwidth from a cold market to a hot market and moving it around in Africa, for example, is I think one of the key under-recognized features. People focus on Ka-band, but the costs per bit are going to be lower on the O3b system than it will be on a traditional FSS system. The flexibility is just phenomenal.”
    The SES campus also looks to bring flexibility to its own operations by dedicating space to a new data center, which will be managed by SES subsidiary EBRC when it is launched into operation in Spring 2012. The data center was a co-investment with P&T Luxembourg, the country’s national telecommunications incumbent, as a Tier-4 resilience center based on scalable and “green” IT infrastructure.
    SES’ fifth data center follows the completion of an operational capability readiness review for one of its other partnerships — The Space Data Association‘s Space Data Center — on April 18. The Space Data Center, based in the Isle of Man, is an automated space situational awareness system, which aims to enable satellite operators to share operator-owned orbital data to improve the safety and efficiency of space operations. The center began initial operations in July for SDA founding members Inmarsat, Intelsat and SES.