LONDON — A consortium of Ukrainian, Nordic and eastern European companies is hoping to raise more than 100 million euros ($115 million) to build a constellation of 70-plus imagery satellites that would provide intelligence along Russia’s border.
The move comes as countries in the region at risk of Russia’s aggression are seeking greater independence from the United States and its space intelligence apparatus.
The project’s proponents hope to secure funding from private firms by the end of 2026 and have the full constellation operational by the end of this decade, Eugen Rokytsky, CEO of an industry group colloquially known as Ukrainian Aerospace Clusters’ Alliance, and leader of the project, told SpaceNews in an interview.
The dual-use satellite constellation, dubbed Intermarsat, would be comprised of more than 70 small satellites in sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of about 500 kilometers (310 miles). It would provide daily revisits across the belt between the Baltic and the Mediterranean Sea, covering countries as far north as Finland and Estonia and as far south as Bulgaria.
Fundraising is expected to start in the coming weeks, Rokytsky said
Since before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, satellite data from American commercial providers and the U.S. government have been indispensable for Ukrainian forces, allowing them to stay abreast of the Russian military’s movements. But deterioration in the relationships between the Ukrainian government and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has made eastern European leaders wary that this strategic advantage could disappear. The temporary pause in intelligence data sharing imposed on Ukraine by the U.S. government in March spurred the eastern European space tech scene into action.
The planned constellation would carry optical cameras imaging the planet’s surface with a resolution of about 50 centimeters (20 inches) and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) payloads that see through clouds and in the dark.
A preliminary feasibility study led by the All-Ukrainian Alliance of Innovation Spacetech Clusters concluded that Ukraine and its partners in the northern and eastern European region, including Finland, the Baltic states, Poland, Czechia and Bulgaria, have the domestic technology capabilities to pull off such a project within the next five years.
“The idea is to have the shortest time to market possible,” Rokytsky said. “Multiple countries in the region have advanced, space-proven satellite technologies, including satellite buses, thrusters and electronic equipment that can be readily available.”
Rokytsky declined to specify which companies are expected to do the bulk of the work. However, eastern European space companies have added more robust capabilities in recent years.
Bulgaria’s Endurosat and Lithuania’s NanoAvionics both manufacture small satellite buses and have delivered more than 10 satellites each to customers. In addition, Czechia’s TRL Space is currently running a crowdfunding campaign to build a high-resolution optical Earth observation (EO) satellite for Ukraine — the first of a planned constellation of five satellites.
Ukraine’s Earth observation capabilities
Rokytsky said Ukraine has been considering building its own EO satellite constellation since before the 2022 Russian invasion but previously concluded the project was beyond the country’s financial means.
“For civil and security purposes, we need daily revisits over the entire region, and that can only be provided by a constellation of over 70 satellites,” Rokytsky said. “The budget will exceed 100 million euros and that’s something that no country in the region would be able [to] afford on its own. But we realized that we could share the cost and the technological expertise with other countries in the region who have similar security concerns.”
Ukraine has launched two EO satellites since its separation from the Soviet Union in 1991. The Sich 2-1 spacecraft developed by the Dnipro-based state behemoth Yuzhnoye State Design Office orbited the planet between 2011 and 2012. Its successor, Sich 2-30, reached space in January 2022, about six weeks before Russian tanks crossed Ukraine’s borders.
Throughout the war, Ukraine’s defence forces have been relying mostly on images from spy satellites operated by the U.S. government and American commercial providers such as Maxar Technologies and Planet. Finland’s SAR satellite operator ICEYE has, too, been a key ally, even selling exclusive access to one of its satellites to Ukraine following a crowdfunding campaign in 2022.
Evolving priorities
Because up-to-date imagery has been readily available in Europe, the appetite for investment in domestic space infrastructure has been low, until recently, Rokytsky said. But the White House’s recent change of heart has brought about a shift in European investors’ priorities.
“Up until late 2024, space has not been a priority for European defense spending,” Rokytsky said. “But the tide has changed now. We see much more openness on the side of venture funds and also European authorities to discuss these investments, which gives us confidence we will have funding in place to start project development in 2026 with the goal to have the entire constellation in orbit in five years.”
Rokytsky stressed that Nordic and eastern European countries who all feel threatened by Russia must come together to deliver the constellation as their concerns may not be understood by those of European nations farther away from Russian borders.
“The constellation would give the [Nordic and eastern European] micro-region strategic autonomy in receiving detailed and timely information for the execution of defense tasks, logistics and others,” Rokytsky said. “The idea is to have the whole infrastructure shared and the architecture being developed commonly.”
Rokytsky expects most of the funding to come from private sources, with the consortium then selling services to European governments based on long-term contracts.
The initiative was first presented at a webinar run by the Ukrainian Aerospace Clusters’ Alliance and its European partners on April 16 as part of its Clusters4Defense advocacy campaign.
In its recently published space strategy, the Ukrainian Space Policy Office identified a domestic satellite constellation providing real-time data as a key step in Ukraine’s transformation from a “user of data to a fully-fledged player in the field of space technology.”
