A satellite assembled in Abu Dhabi is now in orbit. Altair-1 lifted off at 11:32 a.m. PT aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-18 rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, successfully deploying and acquiring signal shortly after. It is currently in commissioning.
The satellite was designed, assembled, integrated and tested at Orbitworks’ 50,000-square-foot production facility in Khalifa Economic Zones Abu Dhabi, which opened in November 2025 as the first commercial satellite production site of its kind in the Middle East. The facility includes a 15,000-square-foot ISO-class cleanroom and has capacity to produce up to 50 satellites a year. Altair-1 was flown to California in August ahead of the launch.
Orbitworks is a joint venture between Marlan Space, a UAE-based space company and subsidiary of IHC, and Loft Orbital, which handled integration.
Altair-1 is the first of a planned ten-satellite constellation. The remaining nine are expected to follow through 2027, at which point the network is designed to revisit any point on Earth roughly every four hours. Each satellite carries five sensors: optical, shortwave infrared, thermal, hyperspectral and radio frequency. Onboard NVIDIA GPUs process that data in orbit, producing analysis-ready intelligence in minutes rather than the hours that ground-based processing typically requires. The constellation is designed to support disaster response, maritime awareness, environmental monitoring, food security, infrastructure surveillance and national security applications.
Dr. Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, Minister of Sports and Chairman of the UAE Space Agency, congratulated the Orbitworks team on this milestone, highlighting the private sector’s role in building advanced, scalable national space industries.
“The launch of Altair-1 reflects the strength of the UAE’s national space ecosystem and its growing capacity to develop and manufacture advanced space technologies. Guided by the National Space Strategy 2031, we are bringing together research, industry and investment to enable national companies to innovate, grow and contribute to economic diversification. Altair-1 also demonstrates how capabilities developed in the UAE can deliver solutions with commercial value beyond our borders. By opening new markets and international partnerships for UAE companies, the launch will strengthen the country’s contribution to the global space sector and advance our ambition to become one of the world’s ten leading space economies by 2031,” he said in a statement.
“Two years ago, Orbitworks was an idea. Today, a satellite built in Abu Dhabi is in orbit. The UAE is no longer only a buyer of space capability; it is a builder of it. Altair-1 is the first of ten, and the start of a future in which customers see, decide and act on their own terms, with intelligence created in orbit,” Dr Hamdullah Mohib, Chief Executive Officer of Orbitworks and Chief Executive Officer of Marlan Space added.
“We are proud to have been a small contributor to this landmark achievement in Abu Dhabi. The UAE space ecosystem has been growing steadily on solid foundations for decades, and it is now ready for liftoff. The launch of the first satellite produced at Orbitworks’ KEZAD’s Abu Dhabi facility paves the way for 10 more over the next 12 months and 50 more over the next few years. This moment shows the world what the UAE has quietly built, and that it is ready to lead globally in AI powered satellite constellation production and operation,” Pierre-Damien Vaujour, CEO of Loft Orbital further explained.
Anchor customers already signed include multiple entities of the French government, the Abu Dhabi Maritime Academy and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development. Customers can either own a satellite outright or access the constellation’s data as a service. Orbitworks said it is in discussions with prospective customers across North America, Africa and Asia.
The Altair programme sits within a broader ambition. In September, Marlan Space and Loft Orbital announced a US$1 billion consortium with Mistral, BlackSky and MaiaSpace to build an AI satellite infrastructure whose initial phase covers fifty satellites. Both programmes are tied to the UAE’s goal of ranking among the world’s ten largest space economies by 2031.
The constellation takes its name from al-ṭā’ir, the Arabic word for “the flying one” and a star used for centuries in navigation.
