With the war in Ukraine pushing Poland to accelerate its space defense program, the NATO nation has orbited its first three military satellites. The spacecraft were launched in November 2025 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Poland plans to send up three more military satellites in 2026 to boost a fleet that will produce intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data for analysis by the military’s new Geospatial Intelligence and Satellite Services Agency, Defense News reported.
The satellites were developed by a partnership between Iceye of Finland, a major European satellite manufacturer, and a private offshoot of Poland’s state-run defense group PGZ. Iceye has called itself a Finnish-Polish company, and recently, the Polish government has taken an ownership stake in the firm.
Iceye has signed contracts with Finland, the Netherlands and Portugal to deploy military satellites equipped with its signature synthetic aperture radar that can see Earth regardless of cloud cover or time of day.
“This is a great day for the Polish Armed Forces and Poland, because they are gaining full independence in radar reconnaissance and imaging,” Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Poland’s minister of defense and deputy prime minister, said at a contract signing in May 2025. “We are also certain that we are acquiring the absolute best capabilities in the world.”
Iceye also has provided radar and satellite services to Ukraine in its war against Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently met in Finland with a group that included Iceye and Polish leaders, Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
The Polish satellites were deployed as part of a payload of 108 spacecraft carried by Transporter-15, a SpaceX small satellite rideshare mission. The mission also carried Earth observation satellites for the Italian space company OHB Italia and for U.S.-based Planet Labs.