By A Correspondent

Helsinki: ICEYE has strengthened its position as the world’s leading Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite operator with the successful launch and deployment of five new SAR satellites aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-15 rideshare mission.

The satellites lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, on November 28, 2025, and have already established communication, with commissioning now underway, the company said in a statement on November 29.

The latest deployment boosts ICEYE’s commercial constellation and supports several national missions, including the Greek National Space Program, Poland’s MikroSAR program for its armed forces, and BAE Systems’ Azalea constellation.

The expansion is aimed at meeting the rising global demand for rapid, all-weather, day-and-night monitoring capabilities for defence, intelligence, disaster response, and resilience planning.

With the addition of these five spacecraft, ICEYE has launched 62 satellites since 2018 — 22 of them in 2025 alone — marking one of the fastest-growing SAR fleets globally.

The company’s focus remains on providing sovereign space capabilities to governments that require independent, high-fidelity situational awareness, it said in the statement.

The launch also adds a fourth-generation (Gen4) SAR satellite to ICEYE’s commercial constellation.

First introduced in September, Gen4 satellites deliver up to 16-centimetre resolution and extend high-resolution imaging coverage to 400 kilometres, enabling significantly more images per orbital pass and faster revisit rates.

ICEYE said this leads to the highest-quality commercial SAR imagery available worldwide, improving target detection and classification for defence and ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) missions.

“This launch marks another important step both in supporting our customers in deploying their own constellations and scaling the world’s most advanced commercial SAR constellation,” said ICEYE CEO Rafal Modrzewski.

He added that the company is ready to help nations build fully sovereign missions, with Gen4 available as an ITAR-free system that can be deployed and operated within 12 months, complete with ground infrastructure, training, and continuous software upgrades.

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