Sovereign satellite programs: questions, answered
We design, build and operate complete national space programs: mission planning, spacecraft, launch, ground segment, operations and the training that hands control to your own people. These are the questions governments actually ask us, answered plainly.
What is a sovereign satellite program?
A satellite program a country controls at every link: the spacecraft, the encryption keys, the ground stations on its own soil and the operators holding its own passports. The opposite of buying imagery or bandwidth from a foreign provider who can switch it off. Space Sovereignty
What is space sovereignty?
The ability to use space without asking permission. A country has space sovereignty when its access to imagery, communications and navigation cannot be revoked by sanctions, a foreign cyber-attack or a single executive's decision. Most countries do not have it yet. Space Sovereignty
What does a national space program include?
Six layers: program planning, spacecraft build, launch, ground stations, mission operations and operator training. Skip any one of them and the program depends on someone else's goodwill at exactly that layer. Our Offerings
Who builds satellites for governments?
Traditionally, a handful of large primes in a handful of aligned countries, with the political strings that implies. Satellize assembles the best available subsystems from a wide partner network and delivers them as one accountable program, so capability does not have to come bundled with alignment. About Satellize
What is a turnkey satellite program?
One contract that covers the spacecraft, the launch, the ground segment, the operations centre and the people trained to run it. The customer receives a working capability, not a crate of parts and a list of other vendors to coordinate. Our Offerings
How long does it take to build and launch a satellite?
Small satellites can go from contract to orbit in under two years; our founders took Exseed Sat 1 from a garage build to a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch in 2018 on a startup timeline. Larger national programs run longer, driven mostly by payload complexity and regulatory lead times, not by the spacecraft itself. Experience
Can a small country afford its own satellite program?
Yes, and the arithmetic has changed recently. Rideshare launch, standardised buses and commodity ground hardware have cut entry costs dramatically over the past decade. The real question is no longer the budget; it is whether the country keeps paying rent for capability it could own. Space Sovereignty
What is the difference between buying satellite data and owning a satellite?
Priority and permanence. A data contract puts you in a queue behind the provider's other customers and their government. Your own satellite points where you decide, on your schedule, and no foreign ministry reviews your tasking. In a crisis that difference is the whole game. Interference catalogue
Do we need our own launch capability to have a space program?
No. Launch is the one layer where dependence is manageable, because the market is competitive and a launched satellite cannot be recalled. What must be sovereign are the layers that operate for years: ground stations, encryption, operations and the people running them. Our Offerings
How do satellite programs get financed?
Nationally funded, export-credit backed, or structured as service agreements that convert to ownership. The right structure depends on the ministry buying it and what the capability replaces; imagery and bandwidth already being rented are often the budget line that pays for it. Discuss a national requirement
How can a country start a space program without an existing space agency?
Start with the mission, not the institution. Define what the country must see or connect, procure the first system as a delivered program, and let the agency grow around a working capability. Countries that founded agencies first often spent a decade producing documents instead of satellites. Our Offerings
What happens to a country's satellite services during sanctions?
They stop, and there is precedent. Our interference catalogue documents cases of imagery embargoes, service suspensions and access withdrawn under political pressure. A rented capability is a capability someone else can turn off; that is not rhetoric, it is the documented record. Interference catalogue
Can one supplier really deliver an entire space program end to end?
No single manufacturer makes the best of everything, which is exactly the point. One supplier may have the best radar, another the right optical payload, a third the ground software. We integrate across that field and stay accountable for the result, so the customer signs one contract instead of assembling the system themselves. Our Offerings
How does a government keep control of a satellite built by a foreign company?
Control lives in three places: the encryption keys, the ground stations and the operators. If the keys are generated on your soil, the stations sit inside your borders and your people run the console, the builder's nationality stops mattering the day after handover. We structure programs so all three transfer. Our Offerings
What should be in a request for proposal for a national satellite system?
Outcomes, not part numbers. Specify what must be observed or connected, at what revisit and latency, who must control tasking and keys, and what gets handed over when. RFPs written around one vendor's spec sheet get exactly that vendor and nothing better. Discuss a national requirement