Ukraine currently has two satellites from the Finnish company ICEYE. One of them, the «people’s satellite,» for which Ukrainians raised UAH 600 million, has a three-year warranty period, but it continues to work overtime.
Ukraine currently has two satellites from the Finnish company ICEYE. One of them, the «people’s satellite,» for which Ukrainians raised UAH 600 million, has a three-year warranty period, but it continues to work overtime.
ICEYE representative Nick Kowalski told Economic Truth about this.
Ukraine has two ICEYE satellites at its disposal: the «people’s» one, purchased by Serhiy Prytula’s charitable foundation, and the second one, funded by Rheinmetall and the German government. The company provides Ukrainian intelligence with the ability to receive images from the entire satellite network.
One satellite makes an average of 2.5 effective flights per day over the territory of Ukraine. These capabilities are guaranteed to be assigned to the owner. Intelligence can use its two satellites and receive data about the area of interest at any time.
To access images from the company’s entire fleet of satellites, you will have to wait longer, as other customers are waiting in line for the satellites. According to Serhiy Prytula, the difference in time between receiving data from partners' satellites and their own is about six times.
Kowalski noted that a long-term partnership with Ukraine allows for cheaper images. In addition, the growth of the ICEYE satellite constellation increases the chances of getting a photo in the right place on the right day. In 2022, the company had 21 satellites in operation, and now it has 44.
An ICEYE representative said that the satellite purchased by the Ukrainians will serve Ukraine as long as it is physically able to work. It was launched in 2021, it has a 3-year warranty from the company. Thus, it has already exceeded its planned resource, but still remains operational.
The launch date of the satellite, purchased with the help of Rheinmetall, is not disclosed, as are the terms of the agreement regarding it.
In 2023, the Main Intelligence Directorate reported that in 5 months of using ICEYE, GUR employees investigated almost a thousand areas of Russian unit locations in temporarily occupied and other territories of interest to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. During this time, the «people’s satellite» ICEYE helped detect more than 7,000 objects of Russian equipment .
Recently, Rafal Modzhevsky, the Polish co-founder of the Finnish company ICEYE, said that before the full-scale Russian invasion, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, offered to purchase the company’s microsatellite. The satellite images obtained twice disrupted the Russian plans in 2021–2022.
