🇫🇮 ICEYE and SSC sign Letter of Intent to strengthen Nordic and NATO space-based capabilities

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ICEYE and SSC sign Letter of Intent to strengthen Nordic and NATO space-based capabilities

Signed at the NATO Arctic Space Forum, the LOI targets potential ICEYE–SSC synergies across mission development, satellite operations and launch capabilities.

Helsinki, Finland – November 20th, 2025 – ICEYE, the global leader in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite operations, and Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), a leading global provider of advanced space services, today announced they have signed a Letter of Intent (LOI). This LOI outlines a plan to leverage their complementary strengths, aiming to enhance sovereign space capabilities for Nordic and NATO security.

The LOI, signed at the NATO Arctic Space Forum last week in Helsinki, reflects the growing strategic cooperation between Sweden and Finland and aims to explore expanded collaboration in key space and defense-related areas. It leverages the complementary strengths of both companies to support future mission development, satellite operations, and launch capabilities.

The partnership will explore synergies between ICEYE’s world-leading sovereign space-based ISR offering and SSC’s extensive global ground station network, mission operations expertise, and future orbital launch services.

Following high-level discussions at the NATO Arctic Space Forum among senior Nordic and NATO leaders on the need for increased cooperation between allied governments and industry, the LOI between ICEYE and SSC represents a tangible step toward rapidly strengthening space-based Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities for the Arctic and NATO’s North-Eastern Flank.

Pekka Laurila, CSO and Co-founder of ICEYE, said: “Through this LOI, we’re evaluating how to combine ICEYE’s SAR offering and SSC’s global ground network and future access to orbit. The intent is to explore concepts that strengthen Nordic collaboration for security and resilience and enable dependable ISR for NATO and the Nordics.”

    Charlotta Sund, President and CEO at SSC, said: “The LOI between SSC and ICEYE aims to develop cooperation based on our complementary strengths, and is in line with and supports an increasing defense cooperation also in the space domain between Sweden and Finland.”

    In September 2025, the Finnish Defence Forces announced the acquisition of SAR satellites and technical systems from ICEYE to establish a sovereign, space-based surveillance capability. The total value of the acquisition is approximately 158 million euros, including the main procurement as well as options to extend the satellites’ lifecycle and expand the system in the future.

    On November 12th 2025, in an address at the NATO Arctic Space Forum, Finland’s Minister of Defence Antti Häkkänen discussed a plan to create a multinational community with allied countries that use SAR satellites, which will promote compatibility, synergy and best practices related to SAR capabilities.

    About ICEYE

    ICEYE delivers unparalleled persistent monitoring capabilities to detect and respond to changes in any location on Earth, faster and more accurately than ever before.

    Owning the world’s largest synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation, ICEYE provides objective, near real-time insights, ensuring that customers have unmatched access to actionable data, day or night, even in challenging environmental conditions. As a trusted partner to governments and commercial industries, ICEYE delivers intelligence in sectors such as defense and intelligence, insurance, natural catastrophe response and recovery, security, maritime monitoring, and finance, enabling decision-making that contributes to community resilience and sustainable development.

    ICEYE operates internationally with offices in Finland, Poland, Spain, the UK, Australia, Japan, UAE, Greece, and the US. We have more than 900 employees, inspired by the shared vision of improving life on Earth by becoming the global source of truth in Earth Observation.

    Media contact

    [email protected]

    About SSC

    Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) is a leading global provider of advanced space services, with more than 50 years of experience. We help space organizations, research institutes, commercial and institutional actors from all over the world to get access to space. With local presence on all continents and about 700 committed employees, we offer specialist expertise in satellite communications and satellite control services, spacecraft operations, rocket and balloon systems, launch services and flight test services, as well as engineering, operations and consultancy services for space missions. We enable successful space projects within Earth observation, telecommunications, security, meteorology, navigation and positioning, scientific research and other applications. Among our strongest assets are Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden, set out to be a leading provider of satellite launch services from mainland Europe, as well as one of the world’s largest commercial ground station networks for satellite communications. For more information, visit www.sscspace.com.

    Media contact: Philip Ohlsson

    [email protected]

    Originally published on 20 November by ICEEYE.

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