SES secures $14.5m Thule contract
July 19, 2021
By Chris Forrester
The Government Solution division of satellite operator SES has secured a US contract to extend connectivity at the Thule, Greenland air base. The contract is valued at $14.5 million.
SES says its solution leverages C-band technology, which is highly resilient to weather effects, and provides a dedicated reach-back beam leveraging single hop connectivity directly to the user site. The SES GS solution also provides redundancy at all levels, to include antennas, uplink and downlink telemetry, ground infrastructure and restoration capabilities.
“We are proud to provide satellite communications support for this critical mission,” said President and CEO of SES Government Solutions, Brigadier General Pete Hoene, USAF (retired). “Thule Air Base is the Department of Defense’s northernmost installation, and this program continues to serve as a great example of the importance of our capability to deliver the critical intelligence data to military decision makers.”
SES GS has been the sole provider of commercial satellite communications to Thule Air Base for over 20 years. It has extensive experience overcoming the challenging conditions of operating in Arctic locations, including the extreme cold-weather environment, unpredictable weather patterns, near-horizon location and logistical challenges.