On 10 June 2026, at the opening of ILA in Berlin, Rheinmetall used a press conference at the show to present an industrial network centred on Rheinmetall ICEYE Space Solutions GmbH, the joint venture created to deliver Germany’s new sovereign space-based Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) capability.

Rheinmetall holds 60% of the joint venture, with Finnish satellite operator ICEYE owning the remaining 40%, while four German NewSpace companies join as initial partners: Reflex Aerospace, OroraTech, ConstellR and LiveEO. The concept was jointly presented by Rheinmetall AG CEO Armin Papperger and ICEYE CEO and co founder Rafal Modrzewski.

Rheinmetall’s proposal in Berlin is a sovereign, multi phenomenology (multi sensor) ISR architecture in which each partner contributes a specific technological building block, based on the premise – stressed by Modrzewski – that no single company can cover the entire chain of acquisition, integration and analysis of space derived data on its own.

Reflex Aerospace supplies the satellite buses – modular platforms in the 100–200 kg mass class, tailored for shared launches and built with explicitly ITAR free components to safeguard European sovereignty across the supply chain.

OroraTech contributes wide swath thermal sensors with on board AI processing, while ConstellR provides high resolution thermal sensing (native 30 m, accuracy better than 2 K). LiveEO completes the picture with optical sensing and AI enabled geospatial analytics.

The network architecture is explicitly open to additional partners in the future, primarily German but also – as Papperger confirmed – European and US, albeit within the familiar constraints imposed by Washington on classified national security technologies, which in turn underpin the German and broader European drive for greater supply chain independence.

The joint venture’s only active contract to date is SPOCK 1 (SAR Space System for Persistent Operational Tracking – Stage 1), a purely SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) programme awarded on 18 December 2025 by BAAINBw, the Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In Service Support. Valued at roughly €1.7 billion and running from late 2025 to the end of 2030, with options for extension, SPOCK 1 covers the development and operation of a sovereign SAR constellation designed to deliver a very high daily volume of imagery, primarily to support the protection of the Bundeswehr’s permanently deployed 45th Panzer Brigade in Lithuania on NATO’s eastern flank.

The contractual model is service based: satellites and ground infrastructure remain the property of the joint venture, while the customer pays for data and service delivery. Papperger nevertheless underlined that the joint venture would be open to a future transfer of asset ownership to the customer, should the Bundeswehr or another buyer request it. The thermal and optical phenomenologies provided by the new partners are not yet covered by any specific contract, and the Berlin announcement effectively positions Rheinmetall for the forthcoming wave of German military space spending.

The key reference is the €35 billion plan out to 2030 announced by Defence Minister Boris Pistorius on 25 September 2025 at BDI’s Berlin Space Congress, covering system hardening against attacks and interference, space situational awareness (SSA), redundancy through interconnected satellite constellations, assured on demand launch capability, and a new military satellite operations centre within the Bundeswehr Space Command.

For the first time in German history, the plan also opens the door to offensive space capabilities for deterrence purposes. This spending trajectory has triggered an intense industrial race within Germany to secure these contracts.

Also on 10 June at ILA, Airbus Defence and Space announced a competing consortium, for which it will act as prime contractor, joined by Rohde & Schwarz, ConstellR (thus present in both groupings), Orbint and High Performance Space Structure System.

Just a few days earlier, OHB and Helsing had in turn unveiled a joint initiative for an integrated space based observation and tactical targeting system. These parallel initiatives underscore how German primes and NewSpace players are moving rapidly to anchor themselves in the emerging military space ISR ecosystem defined by the Pistorius plan. Papperger and Modrzewski repeatedly emphasised speed of delivery of operational capability as the key performance metric.

For SPOCK 1, production of the first joint venture satellites is planned in Neuss in the third quarter of 2026, with the official opening of the German assembly facility scheduled for September and Initial Operating Capability (IOC) expected by the end of 2026 – in other words, within 12 months of contract award – followed by Full Operational Capability (FOC) by the end of 2027. Given such compressed timelines, it is likely that IOC will initially rely on ICEYE’s existing SAR constellation already in orbit, progressively integrating the newly manufactured joint venture satellites. As a benchmark, Modrzewski cited Poland’s MikroSAR system, delivered by ICEYE alone in under 12 months from contract signature (four satellites, €200 million, May 2025–May 2026).

ICEYE currently manufactures one satellite per week and is working to double the rate to two per week in the near term, aiming for an annual capacity of 100 satellites. Strategically, the project sits within a broader paradigm shift in space based ISR: contemporary conflicts are increasingly decided by the speed at which critical data can be made available at the tactical edge. Satellite reconnaissance, AI enabled data processing and rapid targeting are no longer “future” capabilities but defining features of current operational reality. In this context, strategic autonomy in space becomes an immediate operational requirement and a precondition for a credible defensive posture.

The Rheinmetall ICEYE network is designed to give Germany a sovereign handle on this data and decision making cycle, from sensor to shooter.

On the financial side, ICEYE arrives at the Berlin show off the back of a Series F funding round closed on 9 June 2026, on the eve of ILA’s opening: €450 million in primary capital and over €1 billion in total when including secondary placement, valuing the company at more than €10 billion – four times its €2.4 billion valuation at the December 2025 Series E round. The round was led by US investor General Atlantic, with participation from Nokia, Finnish sovereign wealth fund Solidium, Qatar’s sovereign fund QIA and TCV, among others.

ICEYE today supplies sovereign satellite systems to seven European governments: the armed forces of Sweden, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands and Finland, the Greek National Space Programme, and – now – the German Bundeswehr. This customer base, combined with the Rheinmetall partnership, further entrenches ICEYE as a central enabler of Europe’s emerging sovereign space ISR architecture.

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