PGZ and ICEYE Sign a LoI on a Polish Military Low-Orbit Satellite System for Reconnaissance, Command and Communications
Kielce, 11 September 2026
Key points
- Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa and ICEYE signed a letter of intent at MSPO on 11 September to begin concept work on a low-orbit military satellite system for Poland covering reconnaissance, command and satellite communications, built as far as possible on domestic industry
- Arkadiusz Bąk, PGZ's first vice-president, told PAP the armed forces will define the requirement and that milestones are still to be agreed; Wojskowe Zakłady Łączności Nr 1, OBR CTM and PIT-RADWAR are named on PGZ's side
- Donald Tusk said the project is "a challenge, a dream, but not a pipe dream" and that its finale "may and will be a Polish Starlink"
- No value, satellite count or date accompanies the letter; ICEYE's existing Polish work is radar imaging, with three MikroSAR satellites delivered to the armed forces within twelve months of contract in 2025
The state defence group and the Polish-Finnish radar-satellite company signed a letter at Kielce on 11 September to start defining a Polish military constellation in low orbit, and the prime minister named the destination as a Polish Starlink; the letter itself carries no figure, no number of satellites and no date.
Bąk described the letter to PAP as strategic cooperation setting a development direction rather than a single agreement, covering reconnaissance and intelligence, command and control, and military satellite communications, with the command-and-communications layer to be built on Polish industrial competence. PGZ brings its communications and electronics houses: Wojskowe Zakłady Łączności Nr 1, OBR CTM and PIT-RADWAR. The armed forces are to write the requirement; the milestones between letter and system have not been agreed.
ICEYE's Polish record is in imaging. Its three MikroSAR radar satellites for the armed forces flew on SpaceX's Transporter-16 in 2025, delivered inside twelve months of contract, and a further batch of the POLSARIS constellation is contracted; it holds a cooperation agreement with GISPartner on near-real-time radar products. What the letter describes is a Polish integrator taking a partner with satellite-bus and launch experience into a domain neither has delivered.
A Starlink is a communications constellation, and the company on the other side of the letter builds radar satellites, so the letter's reconnaissance leg is the one with an industrial base behind it and the communications leg is the one the prime minister named. Poland already has a route to protected government communications through IRIS², whose low-orbit segment went to contract in Paris the same week, and a sovereign military SATCOM constellation would run beside it rather than replace it; the question the letter does not answer is whether Warsaw wants a national layer above IRIS² or a national supplier into it. The observable is the requirement document the armed forces are to write, and whether it names satellite counts and bands or only capabilities. Signal No. 144 carries the letter beside the IRIS² contracts.
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