MUSCAT — Mohammed Al Barwani Satellites Company (MBSAT), an operating subsidiary of the Mohammed Al Barwani Group, has signed a strategic technology agreement with global satellite ground infrastructure specialist ST Engineering iDirect to develop sovereign satellite communications services across the Sultanate of Oman and the wider region ahead of a scheduled orbital launch in 2027.
The bilateral agreement was formalized in the presence of Dr. Mohammed Al Barwani, Group Chairman, coinciding with the official State Visit of His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik to the United Kingdom. The initiative directly reinforces Oman’s sovereign space roadmap and national digital infrastructure resilience.
The upcoming communications network will utilize orbital transponder capacity from MBSAT 1, a dedicated sovereign MicroGEO geostationary satellite engineered and delivered by spacecraft manufacturer Astranis. Once operational, the platform will provide resilient, high throughput connectivity tailored for government ministries, telecommunications carriers, commercial enterprises, and critical national infrastructure operators across the Sultanate and adjacent markets.
Under the terms of the ground segment deployment, ST Engineering iDirect will supply comprehensive Ka band gateway infrastructure, anchored by its cloud native Intuition baseband system and the Foresight network management platform. The technical scope further encompasses automated service provisioning utilities, open application programming interfaces (APIs) for seamless enterprise systems integration, and continuous technical training and lifecycle engineering support. By leveraging Intuition’s cloud architecture for dynamic bandwidth allocation to maximize orbital capacity utilization alongside Foresight’s operational automation, MBSAT will be positioned to scale satellite services dynamically in alignment with fluctuating commercial and public sector demand.
Ammar Al Rawahi, General Manager of MBSAT, stated that the partnership marks a vital milestone in constructing an advanced sovereign satellite communications platform in Oman and the broader region. Al Rawahi emphasized that collaborating with ST Engineering iDirect establishes the core ground engineering foundation required to launch commercial services efficiently, adapt to complex customer connectivity demands, and expand into new regional verticals to drive sustainable long term business growth.
Sridhar Kuppanna, Chief Executive Officer of ST Engineering iDirect, noted that the company is equipping MBSAT with an agile, software defined ground architecture designed to integrate seamlessly into its operational environment. Kuppanna affirmed that the deployment enables rapid service orchestration today while providing the structural flexibility required to scale network capacity, introduce next generation capabilities, and evolve alongside future space communications standards.
