SES has announced that its Luxembourg-based 50% affiliate GovSat has secured a long-term commercial satellite communications contract to support the operational phase of NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS).

The AGS system consists of remotely piloted air vehicles, ground and support elements performing all-weather, persistent wide-area terrestrial and maritime surveillance in near real-time. AGS will be able to contribute to a range of missions such as protection of ground troops and civilian populations, border control and maritime safety, the fight against terrorism, crisis management and humanitarian assistance in areas affected by natural disasters.

The contract is for an end-to-end service and includes the delivery of satellite capacity in commercial Ku-band — largely coming from the SES fleet — as well as associated capacity management services. These services support the command & control and sensor data communications required by NATO Global Hawk vehicles over the AGS operational area.

GovSat is a public-private partnership between the Luxembourg Government and SES. It offers capacity leases and related 24/7 secure operations from facilities with EU and NATO clearances to governments and institutions. Its first satellite, GovSat-1, is currently under construction and scheduled for launch in 2017.

GovSat is a brand operated by LuxGovSat S.A., a public-private joint venture company between the Luxembourg Government and SES. The company’s first satellite, GovSat-1, is scheduled to be operational in the fourth quarter of 2017. GovSat-1 will be a multi-mission satellite which will use X-band and military Ka-band frequencies on high-power and fully steerable mission beams to support multiple operations.