The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine signed a contract with the Finnish company ICEYE, a leader in the field of SAR satellites. The agreement was called strategically important.
This is reported by the Ministry of Defense.
Thanks to cooperation with international partners, Ukrainian intelligence will have more opportunities — from now on, the military will have access to high-precision space images with full coverage of the territory of hostilities. In turn, the command will be able to independently determine priority surveillance areas and quickly receive up-to-date data through the ICEYE satellite system.
According to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Rustem Umyerov, the agreement was made possible thanks to the support of the German government and the Rheinmetall concern, which was a party to the contract.
"By implementing advanced space intelligence technologies, we are creating a technological advantage that increases combat capability and protects our military," he summarized.
What preceded
In July, the Ministry of Defense signed a memorandum with the ICEYE company to deepen cooperation in the field of space exploration. From the beginning of October 2024, Ukraine receives new satellite images taken by ICEYE satellites as part of the cooperation between Rheinmetall and ICEYE.
ICEYE manufactures microsatellites and owns one of the worldʼs largest arrays of radar satellites.
SAR satellites have a number of advantages over conventional satellites — they can produce high-resolution images regardless of weather conditions or time of day. Such images are very detailed and allow identification of even the smallest objects on the Earthʼs surface.
- In August 2022, ICEYE signed a contract with the Serhiy Prytula Charitable Foundation, giving Ukraine access to one of its satellites. Photos from this satellite are used by Ukrainian intelligence, it has already photographed more than 4 000 objects in the Russian Federation and helped cause billions of dollars worth of damage.
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