Ukrainian communications satellite is now in space – first details of the Obria project

In early October, Ukrainian communications equipment manufacturer Himera and Danish space company GomSpace launched their first communications satellite into orbit as part of the Obria project.

The ambitious project aims to provide Ukrainian organisations with at least a partial alternative to the US Starlink satellite network at a time when the threat of cutting off access to Starlink along the entire front has become a means of political pressure on Ukraine.

The announcement of the satellite's successful launch into orbit marked the public debut of the Obria project, details of which have yet to be disclosed.

In an interview with Ukrainska Pravda, Himera founder Misha Rudominskyi explains how the Ukrainian company initiated this large-scale space project, discusses the satellite's current status in orbit and outlines plans to deploy a fully-fledged satellite network over Ukraine. Read on to find out how much the project will cost, when it will become operational and whether it will give Ukraine independence in satellite communications.

First satellite already in orbit

The first satellite was launched in early October. How did the operation go, and what were its objectives?

Our first test communications satellite was successfully placed into low Earth orbit as part of SpaceX's Transporter-18 mission. It was developed in collaboration with our Danish partner, GomSpace.

We need to use it to test the main components and demonstrate to the government, investors and our Western partners that our Obria initiative is capable of launching spacecraft. It will also allow us to prepare the ground infrastructure (facilities, control centres and ground systems) and train our own team to operate the network.

Has it met your expectations?

We received telemetry from the satellite on the second day after it reached orbit. But it's too early to say whether it has achieved its objectives. I think we'll have the first results in a few months. The entire testing programme is planned to last a year.

It's already possible to track its flight online, but its orbital path doesn't pass over Europe.

This satellite will provide communications coverage over Ukraine, so it needs to be tracked regularly. It's in what's known as a sun-synchronous orbit – an orbit perpendicular to the Earth's rotation – and passes over Ukraine once a day. It's during these "windows" that we'll try to establish contact with it.

Ideally, a window lasts 15 minutes, but depending on the technology, we can use 50-60% of that time. So we'll probably have about six minutes of stable communication, but it will all depend on the test results.

Obria NANO is intended to test the systems and technical aspects. That said, we'll try to get some practical use out of it. We don't yet know exactly what that might be. We have a few concepts in mind and are exploring how feasible they are.

Our goal is independence from Starlink

When did the Obria project begin, and what are its objectives?

The idea behind a sovereign satellite communications constellation for Ukraine is about ownership. The network will belong to a Ukrainian company that will be managed and operated under Ukrainian law.

The end users should be Ukraine's key institutions, which should not have to consult anyone outside Ukraine to carry out their work. The constant restrictions on our military's use of Starlink only reinforced our understanding of the need for our own network.

For us, things started coming together this summer, just after we met and began talking to GomSpace. We realised they are a motivated partner with the right qualifications and expertise – they've been in this market for decades.

The project currently has only one test satellite. When can we expect the first group of satellites to be deployed for practical use?

This is a long-term project that will take years to complete. We expect that, under favourable conditions, it will take us one to two years to fully deploy the network. It's a long, expensive and complicated process, and there are plenty of risks at every level: technological, manufacturing, logistical and operational.

The Obria NANO satellite we've launched is only a technology demonstrator with a basic set of subsystems. It weighs just 10 kg. The mass-produced satellites will weigh around 250 kg and will be launched dozens at a time as part of a single mission.

Our main objective is to provide a stable connection 24/7. At the initial stage, we estimate we'll need at least 100 satellites to provide basic continuous coverage across the entire country.

Will they be able to fully replace Starlink?

We'll provide a fully-fledged high-speed communications service. Whether it will be as fast as Starlink remains to be seen. But we're designing the system to support video streaming with minimal latency and terminals that can operate on moving vehicles.

According to some estimates, there are currently more than 150,000 active Starlink terminals in Ukraine. Will you be able to serve that many users?

It will be quite some time before we can serve that many users simultaneously, but that's not what we're aiming to do. A significant proportion of those terminals are used by civilians, whereas our priority is to meet the needs of the government, the military and other institutions.

What risks could slow down the project's development?

Rockets really are a major problem. If you approach SpaceX without any special connections, you're looking at a waiting list of at least 22 months. In other words, if you wanted to launch a satellite today, you'd have had to approach them 22 months ago.

The second issue is that there aren't many companies that mass-produce satellites worldwide – just five in total – and most of them buy their components from the same suppliers. You often have to wait 6-12 months for a single part. And if funding only comes through after a few months, we won't be able to join the queue until then – all to get one tiny component, of which a satellite has hundreds. All of this has to be taken into account.

Then there's the uncertainty surrounding the political situation. Some components are made exclusively in the US, and the same goes for launches at reasonable prices – they're available in the US. If Europe moves faster, we may be able to reduce some of these risks through diversification.

But the biggest bottleneck right now is satellite communications terminals. Apart from SpaceX, everyone buys them from third-party manufacturers. For example, SpaceX's closest competitor, OneWeb, hasn't been able to supply new terminals to Ukraine for the past six months because the wait for production is up to three years. These terminals are quite difficult to manufacture: making them by hand is virtually impossible because they require such high precision. At the moment, many satellite communications projects are being held up by terminals rather than satellites. We have ambitious plans here: we want to try to solve this problem by setting up our own production.

Funding and independence

Who funded the launch of the first Obria satellite?

The first stage of the project was funded entirely by the consortium members: Himera, GomSpace and other private companies that will be announced later. No government funding was involved. It was a fairly substantial sum, but one that we, as consortium members, could afford. We can't disclose the exact figures.

The next stages will cost tens or hundreds of millions, and potentially even billions of euros.

How do you plan to raise funding to develop the programme?

Through private investment and funding from government programmes, mainly those involving cooperation between the European Union and Ukraine aimed at providing strategic support to Ukraine. There's actually a window of opportunity open right now because Ukraine is an ideal customer for a constellation like this. And there are users who need a system that doesn't depend on US decisions.

Who will decide on the conditions under which your network will provide services, and where it won't?

Every private defence company in Ukraine makes its own internal decisions, but if a customer comes to you – say, the Ministry of Defence – and says, "We need this, and we need it done this way," you have very little reason to refuse. They're your customer. The Ukrainian military has told you what it needs, and you find every possible way to make it happen. Our job is to make sure the Ukrainian customer gets everything they need.

What goals have you set for the next 12 months, and what challenges do you expect to face?

Over the coming months, we need to train our people. As a company, we need to learn how to work with satellites. We need to identify what Ukraine needs most urgently and focus on addressing those specific needs through satellite communications.

This project will only work if there is very close coordination and support from all sides. Those sides are the Ukrainian customer and the Ukrainian and European parts of the consortium. As far as the consortium members are concerned, that part is already settled: we have a strong Ukrainian side and a strong European side. What we need to establish over the next few weeks is what financial and political support we can expect.

Oleksandr Yan

Translated by Artem Yakymyshyn

Edited by Susan McDonald