OneSat Novacom I

OneSat Novacom I is an ESA Partnership Project, which is aimed at supporting the development of a new generation of geostationary telecommunications satellites, is a product line built by Airbus Defence and Space in collaboration with ESA, along with European space-industry suppliers within eight ESA Member States: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, Austria, and The Netherlands.

The project is in collaboration with the French Space Agency, Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales (CNES).
As well as offering traditional services, including TV broadcasting, Novacom I satellites will help to revolutionise in-flight connectivity on board planes, as well as bridge the digital divide in remote areas.
ESA’s involvement is critical: through its Partnership Projects programme, it helps share risk, align industry across Europe, support the qualification of novel subsystems, and ensure the resulting product is commercially competitive and technically advanced. 
The success of Novacom I will be key to strengthening Europe’s position in global satellite communications, enable more flexible connectivity services, and promote industrial innovation and growth.

The goals of Novacom I

The goal of the product line is to reduce costs, accelerate manufacture, improve performance and adaptability (coverage, capacity, frequency) in the geostationary telecommunications market. For example, the OneSat product line is intended to deliver traditional services like TV broadcast but also is projected to “revolutionise in-flight connectivity” and bridge the digital divide in remote areas. 
The satellite communications market is evolving rapidly (high throughput satellites, variable beams, changing user demand). A standardised reconfigurable GEO satellite enables European manufacturers to compete more aggressively, boosting European industry competitiveness and jobs, and preserving European sovereignty in space.
Traditional geostationary telecom satellites are fixed in mission (fixed beams, coverage, payload). The Novacom I satellites are software-defined, fully reconfigurable in orbit, and largely standardised: instead of bespoke satellites for each customer, one base design is used, and flexibility is achieved by software and digital payloads.
Because OneSat uses a standardised modular design, uses commercial off-the-shelf components and leverages digital payloads, lead times and costs can be reduced while maintaining high performance.