Iceye, a Finnish SAR constellation operator, and IHI Corporation, a Japanese aerospace and defense firm, have recently finalized an agreement to develop an Earth observation satellite constellation. This collaboration aims to cater to security, civilian, and commercial needs.
Under the agreement, IHI Corporation has placed an order for four satellites and an image acquisition system from Iceye, with the possibility of acquiring 20 more satellites later. While the contract's financial details remain undisclosed, Witold Witkowicz, CEO of Iceye Poland, anticipates the initial satellites to begin commissioning and data delivery around April 2026. Witkowicz told SpaceNews that Iceye has produced 57 satellites so far, with over 30 forming its current constellation. The remaining satellites have either been sold or deorbited.
Company officials indicate that, alongside pursuing international business and advancing its synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite technology, Iceye intends to broaden its portfolio with optical Earth observation and signals intelligence (SIGINT) satellites.
While headquartered in Finland, Iceye has a significant presence in Warsaw, Poland, where it operates an operations, engineering, and R&D hub, also conducting some manufacturing activities.
“The main task of the Polish subsidiary has been to operate the satellites of the entire Iceye constellation,” Witkowicz said. “We have performed this task 24 hours a day, seven days a week since January 2018 when our first satellite, Iceye-X1, was launched.” Witold Witkowicz confirmed that the Warsaw hub will also manage the satellites developed for IHI Corporation.
The business is also planning to expand beyond SAR satellites. According to Witkowicz, Iceye's Gen4 satellites offer a ground resolution of up to 16 cm, function within a 1200 MHz imaging bandwidth, and have a data downlink of approximately 700 Mbps. Iceye has not revealed the satellite generation purchased by IHI. He said that the spacecraft, which was first launched in September 2025, represents a new SAR satellite performance standard with an expanded 400 kilometer high-resolution coverage area which enables “more images per orbital pass and higher revisit rates, resulting in the world’s highest-fidelity commercial SAR imagery.” A Gen4 satellite is able to capture up to 500 images per day, with up to 50% concentrated within a 2,000-km-wide region per orbit, according to Witkowicz.