Updated 3:15 p.m. Eastern with additional details about the constellation.
WASHINGTON — European smallsat manufacturer Open Cosmos has won a contract to build a constellation of seven satellites for the Greek government.
Open Cosmos announced May 29 it won a contract worth 60 million euros ($65 million) to build a set of seven satellites. The satellites will carry optical and hyperspectral cameras as well as Internet of Things (IoT) and Automatic Identification System (AIS) receivers. The contract is funded by the government of Greece and managed by the European Space Agency.
The company told SpaceNews that two of the seven satellites will carry “very high resolution” cameras with a resolution of less than one meter and the other five a suite of multispectral and hyperspectral cameras as well as IoT and AIS receivers. All seven are microsatellites in the 100-kilogram class. The company said it booked a launch for the satellites in the second half of 2026 but did not disclose the launch provider.
As part of the contract, Open Cosmos, headquartered in the United Kingdom and with offices in France and Spain, will establish a new office in Greece to lead the work on the satellites. Open Cosmos Aegean, the company’s Greek entity, will set up a factory near Athens to perform the satellite work.
“By investing in both capacity-buying and capacity-building space programs, our aim is to stimulate local high-tech space industries, foster job creation, retain our skilled engineers and space experts in the country and attract additional talent,” Dimitris Papastergiou, Greece’s minister of digital governance, said in a statement.
Open Cosmos said the Greek satellites will be “fully compatible” with the Atlantic Constellation, an effort led by Portugal and Spain to develop a satellite network for climate monitoring and disaster mitigation. They will also be incorporated into OpenConstellation, a virtual constellation led by Open Cosmos to share satellites.
“We faced competition from some of the world’s leading players in the industry, and to win is a true testament to the hard work of everyone at Open Cosmos and the strength of our advanced satellite technology,” said Rafel Jorda Siquier, founder and chief executive of Open Cosmos, in a statement. “Delivering this contract will position us at the forefront of satellite data providers, opening up further collaborations and growing the OpenConstellation.”
Open Cosmos raised $50 million in a Series B round in September 2023. The company said at the time it would use the funding to allow the company, which had been developing cubesat-class spacecraft, to expand into larger microsatellites and to help build out OpenConstellation.
