All five Polish satellites launched into orbit on a Falcon 9 rocket from California have successfully established communication with ground stations, marking another important step in building Poland’s own satellite capabilities based on domestic technologies. The Transporter-15 rideshare mission lifted off on Friday from the Vandenberg Space Force Base, carrying 140 satellites from multiple countries, including a radar satellite built under the MikroSAR programme, a nanosatellite developed by SatRev, and three imaging nanosatellites forming the Polish PIAST constellation.
According to the Military University of Technology (Wojskowa Akademia Techniczna, WAT), which leads the PIAST project, all three satellites in the constellation – PIAST-M, PIAST-S1 and PIAST-S2 – have already achieved two-way contact with Earth. The first telemetry packets received from the spacecraft are now being analysed by engineers. This initial data concerns key subsystems on board, such as power, communications and attitude control, and is used to verify that the satellites survived launch and deployment in nominal condition. The early commissioning phase is always a critical moment: if communication is established quickly and the systems respond correctly, operators can proceed with more advanced procedures, including instrument activation and calibration of the optical payloads.
The PIAST constellation, whose name is derived from “Polish ImAging SaTellites”, is a research and development programme designed to lay the foundations for autonomous Polish satellite capabilities. Developed by WAT in consortium with Creotech Instruments, the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Łukasiewicz Research Network, the Łukasiewicz Institute of Aviation, as well as Scanway and PCO S.A., the project focuses on optical Earth observation for defence needs. For the Polish Armed Forces, having access to their own imaging satellites means greater independence from foreign data providers, faster access to critical information and the ability to tailor collection strategies to national priorities. The PIAST satellites are expected to supply imagery suitable for monitoring the territory of Poland and its neighbourhood, supporting tasks ranging from situational awareness and border monitoring to training and crisis response.
Communication was also quickly achieved with the PW6U nanosatellite, built by SatRev. Around 22:30 Polish time, roughly 100 minutes after the satellite was released into orbit, the mission control team in Wrocław successfully received telemetry during the very first planned pass. The company reported that the data confirmed the proper functioning of the power and communications systems as well as the correct execution of the initial post-launch procedures. For a commercial player like SatRev, a clean commissioning sequence significantly reduces mission risk and allows the team to move more confidently toward full operational status.
PW6U is designed for multispectral observation of the Earth at medium resolution. The satellite’s instruments will collect data for a range of commercial, environmental and administrative applications. This includes monitoring vegetation and land use, supporting urban planning, aiding public administration in managing infrastructure and spatial development, and providing services for sectors such as agriculture and insurance. The mission also has potential uses in the security domain, for example in monitoring critical infrastructure sites, detecting changes around key facilities or assessing the impact of natural disasters.
A separate highlight of the Transporter-15 launch was the successful deployment of ICEYE X62, the first Polish radar satellite dedicated to the needs of the Polish Armed Forces, built under the MikroSAR programme. Shortly after launch, ICEYE’s chief executive officer confirmed that communication with the satellite had been established and that all systems were functioning correctly. On Saturday morning, the company announced that it had contacted all of its newly launched satellites, including the unit produced for Poland. ICEYE representatives stressed that the mission has now entered the testing and calibration phase. Once this phase is completed, the satellite will be formally handed over to the Polish military.
The MikroSAR satellite is part of a wider constellation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) spacecraft operated by ICEYE. Unlike optical instruments, SAR sensors can provide high-quality imagery regardless of cloud cover or lighting conditions, which makes them especially valuable for defence, border security and crisis management. The newest generation of ICEYE satellites, including the unit for Poland, can deliver images with a resolution as fine as 16 centimetres per pixel and have an imaging swath of up to 400 kilometres. This combination of high resolution and wide coverage allows operators to collect detailed data over large areas during a single pass, significantly speeding up the monitoring of regions of strategic interest. For the Polish Armed Forces, integration with such a constellation means a major reinforcement of reconnaissance and situational awareness capabilities.
Taking into account the latest launch, ICEYE has placed 62 satellites into orbit since 2018, 22 of them in 2025 alone. This rapid expansion reflects the growing demand worldwide for persistent, high-resolution radar coverage. For Poland, partnering with a company that operates a mature SAR constellation while simultaneously developing its own domestic imaging assets creates a hybrid architecture: part national, part commercial, and increasingly integrated.
The joint presence in orbit of the PIAST optical satellites, the PW6U multispectral platform and the MikroSAR radar satellite clearly illustrates how quickly Poland is moving from being primarily a user of foreign space services to becoming an active space actor in its own right. Each mission serves a different segment of the observation spectrum and a different slice of the user community, from defence and national security to public administration, science and business. Together, they bring the country closer to the goal of building comprehensive satellite capabilities rooted in Polish technologies and know-how, and they signal that space has become a strategic domain for Poland in both military and civilian terms.
