Two satellites take on Starlink: how SES is challenging Musk's space network
At Cape Canaveral, Europe's answer to Elon Musk's Starlink lifts off – with a completely different architecture.
What is at stake
In satellite internet, Elon Musk is currently almost impossible to catch. By the end of 2022, Starlink already had more than 3,000 satellites in low Earth orbit, with plans for up to 40,000 long term. Amazon is developing its own network under the name Project Kuiper. What is often overlooked: there is a European company that already operates a global satellite internet today – with a fundamentally different architecture.
Two worlds in orbit
Luxembourg-based SES is not betting on quantity but on altitude. While Starlink satellites orbit at 500 to 1,200 kilometres, SES’s new O3b mPower satellites fly at around 8,000 kilometres. That makes a significant difference: instead of thousands of small satellites, just six large ones are sufficient to cover the globe. For Boeing manager Michelle Parker, who developed the system, this is also a response to growing concern about space debris.
Who relies on SES
The customer base is different from Starlink’s. Rather than private users with dish antennas in their gardens, SES targets businesses that need high bandwidth and above all resilience. Microsoft is one of them – the company uses SES to back up its global cloud infrastructure. Cruise ships like those of Princess Cruises receive gigabit speeds on the open ocean. And for the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, SES has become a lifeline after the neighbouring island of Tonga lost its undersea cables twice – once to a ship’s anchor, once to a volcanic eruption.
Why the launch matters
Starlink is already suffering from its own success: the more users, the lower the bandwidth – in the United States it fell by 17 per cent in a single quarter, according to analysis firm Ookla. SES promises download speeds of up to ten gigabits per second with the new satellites, and latency comparable to fibre. Around half of future customers, SES CEO Steve Collar predicts, will be governments.
I followed the rocket launch in person at Cape Canaveral. I wrote the full piece with all technical details, customer perspectives and context on the global satellite race for Handelsblatt.