The government and military services arm of the Luxembourg-based world satellite operator SES, SES Government Solutions, has signed a deal with the US Department of Defence to supply 288MHz of military communications capacity to the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) area via its satellite fleet in a one year contract with possibilities of extending this for up to four years.
In a separate development, it was announced that the SES-14 will host the NASA/University of Colorado Sun-Earth science GOLD payload under 5-year contract (two years of operations in orbit). SES-14 will be launched to a geostationary orbit in late 2017.
The primary purpose of the Global-Scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission is to revolutionize the understanding of the space environment by filling the critical gap in knowledge of Sun-Earth connections. The hosted payload will transmit data of the Sun’s impact on the Earth’s thermosphere and ionosphere from Geostationary (GEO) orbit. Both of these layers of the Earth’s upper atmosphere are very sensitive to space weather events and space climate, with potential societal impacts. Uncertainties in the thermosphere are a primary source of uncertainty for operating satellites in low Earth orbit. Fluctuations in the ionosphere interfere with signals from communications and global positioning satellites.
