Nokia, ICEYE Plan Sovereign Government Satellite Network

Nokia and ICEYE sit a short drive from each other in Espoo, Finland. The trip between headquarters takes about ten minutes by car. On October 1, 2026, the two Finnish firms issued a joint press statement in Helsinki announcing a government-facing partnership built around satellites in low Earth orbit—the band of space nearest the planet, where craft circle fast enough to deliver lower-latency links than those farther out.

Justin Hotard, Nokia’s president and chief executive, put the case for orbital connectivity as the statement went out. “Sovereign operations depend on the ability to sense, decide, and act in real time. Physical AI makes that possible, but only with secure, resilient connectivity across land, sea, air, and space,” he said. The same day, Hotard and ICEYE chief executive Rafal Modrzewski spoke together in a joint interview.

The partnership plans to launch up to 50 satellites into low Earth orbit per year starting in 2028. The first jointly developed satellites are expected to launch that year. Each satellite in that orbit can communicate with only a fraction of the Earth at a given time.

The systems Nokia and ICEYE set out to build were secure, high-performance broadband links aimed at governments and defense customers. Missions would run from military and border security to emergency services and disaster response. The design would complement existing military and commercial networks rather than replace them, delivering targeted high-throughput, low-latency connectivity over priority mission areas by integrating satellites, ground infrastructure and ruggedized terminals. When terrestrial networks are disrupted or compromised, defense forces, first responders and civil authorities risk losing access to the information and command systems they depend on. Governments will be offered ground terminals and satellites designed to work with land-based networks so armed forces, emergency services and ministries stay connected through disruptions. The satellites will be built in Finland.

“Built on trusted European technology, the jointly developed satellite communications systems will give nations ownership and control of the satellites, ground segment and terminals,” the companies stated together. Hotard put the same point in operational terms: “By bringing together Nokia's trusted networks with ICEYE's proven sovereign space capabilities, we will deliver a satellite communications capability – complementing existing terrestrial networks, and giving nations the situational awareness, connectivity, and control they need to operate with confidence in contested environments across all domains.”

Europe was racing to cut its reliance on foreign satellite suppliers. In August 2026 the European Union said it was expanding IRIS², its sovereign satellite program, into a unified service that would not rely on foreign suppliers. Governments across the continent were already building national satellite capabilities of their own; the Union’s step was meant to give them a common layer free of external dependence.

Spectrum formed the next front in the same scramble. Bloomberg News reported that Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Vodafone Group and Telefonica were in talks to form a joint venture. The four operators aimed to bid together for the European Union’s 2 GHz satellite spectrum and offer direct connections from orbit to ordinary mobile devices. That band lets satellites reach smartphones and other terminals without dedicated terrestrial infrastructure. The Commission’s proposed plan reserved one-third of the spectrum for government use. Two-thirds would go to commercial services. The licenses would cover the period beyond 2027.

Rafal Modrzewski, chief executive and co-founder of ICEYE, put the requirement in plain terms. “Nations must be able to fully own and control their communications, without dependency on a foreign commercial operator’s terms of service. We delivered Poland its own radar satellite system in under a year,” he said. “Partnering with Nokia lets us move at a similar speed for satellite communications, on the timelines nations need.”

In August 2026 the company agreed to sell Earth-observation satellites to Poland’s Ministry of National Defense, with launch scheduled for November. Earlier that October it signed a letter of intent with state-owned defense manufacturer PGZ SA to build a Polish military satellite communications system. ICEYE is a Finnish microsatellite firm based in Espoo, a specialist in synthetic aperture radar—the technique that images the ground through cloud and darkness—and it operates the world’s largest advanced SAR constellation, selling complete sovereign systems that governments run themselves. The deal with Nokia carried the company from radar Earth observation and sovereign intelligence from space into satellite communications.

Nokia was already on ICEYE’s cap table—the list of the company’s owners. It had participated in ICEYE’s Series F funding round in the summer of 2026, months before the joint statement. That round surpassed $1.1 billion. In June 2026 ICEYE raised 450 million euros at a valuation of 10 billion euros. Other backers included Solidium, General Atlantic, and Qatar’s QIA sovereign wealth fund. At the same time Nokia was expanding beyond its core mobile network infrastructure, investing in satellite systems and data-center equipment, with defense networking another growing line of work. It brought secure-networking experience and that expanding defense portfolio into the collaboration.

“Together with Nokia, we are building on our proven space intelligence expertise and delivering sovereign, high-performance satellite communications,” Modrzewski said. “This is probably one of the most significant changes in Iceye’s overall strategy.”

Hotard and Modrzewski were set to appear together on stage at the Helsinki Security Forum on October 2.