Eutelsat and Infinite Orbits announced an agreement today—on the sidelines of the International Space Summit in Paris—paving a pathway for the French satellite-servicing company to increase the life span of at least one of Eutelsat’s GEO satellites.
The mission is yet another example of the increasing demand from satellite-servicing missions from GEO operators. It is the third order for a life-extension mission for Infinite Orbits, following last year’s agreement with SES, and a similar agreement with Hispasat in 2024.
“GEO operators now—all of them—understand what life extension is, what it can bring,” Infinite Orbits’ CEO Adel Haddoud told Payload. “From an industrial point of view we are ready to scale, and also from a commercial point of view, our customers are also ready to order more.”
The mission: Eutelsat operates 31 satellites in GEO, at least one of which is nearing its “use-by” date. Luckily, Infinite Orbits sells borrowed time.
Infinite Orbits is developing spacecraft—called Endurance—to rendezvous and dock with unprepared satellites in GEO. Each mission can increase a customer satellite’s life span by ~5 years, according to Haddoud. (Typical GEO sats might operate for 15 years or so without a tune-up.)
The extra life Infinite Orbits offers should allow GEO operators to continue collecting revenue on assets that would have otherwise deorbited, or moved into a graveyard trajectory. While Haddoud declined to share the cost of each life-extension mission, he confirmed that the “business case closes” for Eutelsat, meaning the cost of the life-extension mission is less than the expected increased revenue opportunities that arise from extra years on orbit.
And the demand Infinite Orbits is seeing suggests that business case is starting to make sense for a range of GEO satellite operators. Infinite Orbits is expecting a wave of demand once more GEO satellites start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel—and they’re planning for it now.
This week, Infinite Orbits cut the ribbon on a new 1,000-sq.-m. facility—for satellite assembly, integration, and testing—in Toulouse, France, to churn out future Orbit Guard (inspection) and Endurance (life extension) spacecraft.
From here to there: Before flying its life-extension mission for Eutelsat, however, Infinite Orbits has a series of demonstration flights to test out its rendezvous capabilities. Infinite Orbits has already flown one demo mission of its Orbit Guard satellite, and has at least three more planned in 2027.
- Infinite Orbits also has a mission planned as part of a surveillance contract from the French MoD.
- In partnership with Open Cosmos, Infinite Orbits will launch two small satellites—named Tom and Jerry—on an Isar Aerospace Spectrum rocket to LEO to conduct close-proximity maneuvers.
- Infinite Orbits will then fly its first life-extension mission for SES in 2027 with Endurance, and Eutelsat’s mission after that.
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The Exploration Company (TEC) raised a $450M (€386.9M) Series C this week in one of the European space industry’s largest scale-up fundraises to date.
The round, which brings TEC’s total financing to ~$680M (€584.7M) since its founding in 2021, will fund the development of the company’s Nyx cargo reentry vehicle, as well as its Storm reusable rocket engine.
Bessemer Venture Partners, Atomico, and the Scaleup Europe Fund—managed by EQT—led the round, which included additional participation from TEC’s existing investors Balderton, Plural, Cherry Ventures, and Red River West.
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