Loft Orbital (Loft), a global space infrastructure company, and Marlan Space, a UAE-based investor and subsidiary of IHC, announced a US$ 1 billion program at the International Space Summit in Paris, to build a 50-satellite constellation designed to process data using artificial intelligence while in orbit which expands on a 10-satellite demonstration program.
According to a press release, the satellites will carry radar, optical and other sensors and will provide services to government users in France, Europe and the UAE, as well as commercial customers. The system is designed to process satellite observations in orbit rather than sending raw data to Earth for processing which could allow information to be delivered within seconds instead of hours.
Loft Orbital will provide the satellite platforms, onboard AI and software, and constellation operations. The company has supported more than 100 payloads and 20 AI missions in orbit. Its work includes a demonstration with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory involving a satellite running a vision-language model onboard.
Pierre-Damien Vaujour, CEO, Loft Orbital , said, “For the past few years, we have been working on deploying AI applications in space and orchestrating how they work together with this constellation, we’re giving our partners building agentic AI workflows in space a true world-class satellite infrastructure.”
The satellites will be manufactured by Orbitworks, a joint venture between Marlan Space and Loft Orbital, at its facility in Abu Dhabi. The companies describe the facility as the region’s largest high-volume manufacturing site for commercial satellite constellations.
“When we set out to build this program, we bet on a future where intelligence would move into orbit, and that the UAE would be one of the places building it,” said Dr. Hamdullah Mohib, CEO, Marlan Space and Orbitworks [signing on behalf of Marlan Space]. “This is where the industry is going, and we’re proud to be at the front of it. Fifty satellites, working together in groups with different capabilities as one system, make this one of the most advanced constellations in the world. This turns a factory into a national capability, and the UAE from a buyer to a seller of satellite services, with engineering skills, intellectual property, and a supply chain that stays in the country long after the satellites are in orbit.”
French AI company Mistral is joining the consortium to provide onboard AI models for reasoning and natural-language tasking. Its models will also support services offered through the AI application store.
U.S.-based BlackSky, a real-time, space-based intelligence company, will provide high-resolution optical satellites and its involvement builds on its existing relationship with Loft Orbital, including work through Leostella, Loft Orbital’s former joint venture with Thales Alenia Space.
Brian O’Toole, CEO, BlackSky, said, “We’re proud to be selected as a key partner and the highest-resolution optical provider on this program,“our technology’s proven, on-orbit performance stands as an essential capability behind the world’s first AI-enabled constellation.”
The first 10 satellites are already in production in Abu Dhabi, with the first satellite scheduled for launch in October. Customers will access the capabilities through an AI application store, where they can select models and run them on the shared satellite infrastructure. Initial applications include maritime domain awareness, wildfire detection, disaster response, and monitoring ports and critical infrastructure.