“Adel’s mad!” On that evening in early January, this increasingly prominent figure expressed, almost naively, his astonishment at SES CEO Adel Al-Saleh’s plan to set up satellite production facilities in Luxembourg. Unconcerned by the presence beside him of SES’s Vice-President for Defence in Luxembourg, 
What struck him that evening was not just that a satellite operator wanted to branch out into manufacturing. It was also the location chosen to do so. In Kockelscheuer, where Mr Al-Saleh was then planning to occupy up to 60 per cent of the future Space Campus, “there isn’t even the slightest sign of any construction work,” he points out. Yet the project had only just been publicly unveiled by the head of SES on stage at the Fedil New Year’s reception, where he was the guest of honour. After forty years of operating spacecraft built by Boeing, Airbus or Thales Alenia Space, the Luxembourg-based group now wants to produce some of them itself.
This scepticism seems all the more justified given that the government is, at the same time, acknowledging the delays affecting the campus. The foundation stone was originally due to be laid in 2024, with the first buildings due to become operational around 2026. In January, the Ministry of the Economy was no longer expecting construction to begin until July. Companies will not be able to let their first offices until 2028. The marketing of the premises has not even begun.
A 15,000m 2 ‘mother fab’
The ministry then describes a Space Campus spread across two sites. In Belval, an initial plot of 69 ares – which can be extended to 1.9 hectares – is set to bring together public research organisations centred on the University of Luxembourg, the SnT, the European Space Resources Innovation Centre and the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology. In Kockelscheuer, some seven hectares are set aside for businesses, the future headquarters of the Luxembourg Space Agency, its incubator, offices and a test centre.
Companies will be able to rent premises there or build their own facilities. This second option currently appears to be in line with SES’s plans. The company does not simply want to relocate a few engineers to the campus. It is preparing what Al-Saleh now refers to as a ‘mother fab’: a 15,000-square-metre factory intended to manufacture payloads, and subsequently to carry out the assembly, integration and testing of satellites.
Between the announcement and the building – which is still only a concept – SES has found a solution: to start elsewhere. “Does SES really need to wait for the Space Campus to launch its repositioning?” a company executive had already dismissed the idea back in January. Betzdorf, or another temporary facility, could suffice to kick-start the programme.
Production has started
On 30 July, when announcing its half-year results, SES revealed that production had begun on 13 July. The first circuit boards and the first casings for the embedded processor have rolled off the pilot production line. A first production hall dedicated to electronic assembly is due to be fully equipped by mid-August. A second hall will house the test and qualification facilities for payloads, antennas and platforms. Production and testing of Pathfinder 2 are due to begin in mid-September. Pathfinder 1 is already in space.
This timetable changes the nature of the project. It is no longer just a statement by the CEO, a few new hires or a claim to land on a delayed campus. SES is setting up a production line even before its future factory is completed. Kockelscheuer is intended to facilitate the transition from this pilot line to mass production.
The job vacancies tell the same story. Of the 143 vacancies identified in Luxembourg, 28 mention meoSphere, 27 mention IRIS² and 15 relate directly to satellite manufacturing. Thirty-nine are work placements. But the job titles are more revealing than the total. SES is looking for an ‘AIT & Production Ramp-Up Satellite Manufacturing Test Engineer’, an IRIS² industrialisation manager, automation specialists, manufacturing technicians and electronic assembly trainees. Ramp-up, industrialisation, automation, production: this is not the vocabulary of a design office. It is that of a factory being set up.
meoSphere, 28 satellites in medium Earth orbit
However, Mr Al-Saleh has not decided to manufacture thousands of small low-Earth orbit satellites in Luxembourg to replicate Starlink. The first clearly defined industrial programme is called meoSphere. It envisages an initial series of 28 satellites placed approximately 8,000 kilometres from Earth, in medium Earth orbit. They are to be spread across four orbital planes, each comprising seven satellites, and are due to enter service around 2030.
This distinction is important. IRIS² will indeed include a low-Earth orbit component, but meoSphere falls within SES’s traditional domain: medium Earth orbit, which is closer to Earth than geostationary satellites and much further away than the Starlink or OneWeb constellations. SES aims to provide high-speed communications in this orbit to aircraft, ships, businesses, governments and the armed forces. The satellites will also be able to carry instruments for observation, space surveillance, navigation and military communications.
‘Building satellites’ does not mean, either, that SES will produce everything from the propulsion system to the solar panels. The group has partnered with K2 Space, a US start-up tasked with supplying the high-power platforms. These ‘bus’ platforms provide power, propulsion, flight control and other essential functions. SES will develop and manufacture the digital payloads in Luxembourg: the processors, radios, antennas and software that determine what the satellite can actually do.
The US platforms must then be integrated with SES’s payloads prior to the assembly, integration and testing of the spacecraft. The group is thus bringing in-house the part of the process most directly linked to its services and customers, without becoming a fully integrated manufacturer. It will continue to rely on international suppliers, whilst exercising greater control over technologies, costs and timetables.
Let there be the ‘SpaceX touch’
This shift is a response to a troubled industrial history. The first O3b mPOWER satellites built by Boeing encountered electrical problems that reduced their service life and capacity. SES and Boeing had to modify subsequent satellites and order two additional ones. As at 30 June, SES had recovered $218m from insurers. For an operator whose revenue depends on equipment launched over many years, delays or defects on the part of a supplier can tie up hundreds of millions of euros.
Mr Al-Saleh also believes that the traditional model is no longer moving fast enough. SpaceX designs, manufactures, launches and operates its own satellites. This integrated approach enables it to continually refine its spacecraft and produce them in series. SES has no plans to integrate the entire supply chain, let alone develop its own launch vehicle. However, meoSphere is adopting part of this approach: standardised platforms, proprietary payloads, successive Pathfinder satellites and product improvements with each cycle.
The company also wants to protect itself against geopolitical fragmentation of supply chains. Back in July 2025, Mr Al-Saleh explained that the O3b mPower satellites, although built by Boeing in the United States, utilised European technology. He anticipated the need to maintain two supply chains, one capable of serving the United States and the other Europe. SES is today reaffirming this transatlantic strategy. Whilst it reduces certain risks, it also limits the project’s European sovereignty: the first series of meoSphere satellites will be based on an American platform.
IRIS² provides the other piece of the jigsaw. Signed in December 2024, the concession contract provides for 290 new satellites in low and medium Earth orbit to provide the European Union with secure and sovereign communications from 2030 onwards. The programme is backed by €6.5bn in public funding and over €4bn in private funding. SES leads the SpaceRISE consortium alongside Eutelsat and Hispasat.
The Luxembourg-based group is to develop, purchase and operate 18 satellites in medium Earth orbit. It plans to invest up to €1.8bn, at a rate of around 400 million per year between 2027 and 2030. In return, SES will be able to market more than 90 per cent of the capacity of these satellites and part of the low-Earth orbit capacity. The company had estimated cumulative revenue at around six billion euros over the twelve-year term of the contract.
However, the programme is not yet fully finalised. The first contractual meeting is still required to confirm its cost, configuration, timetable and supply chain. Originally expected in the spring, it has been delayed. On 30 July, SES stated that negotiations were in their final stages. The contract provides that a party may withdraw if costs become excessive, if technical requirements cannot be met, or if the entry into service is unduly delayed.
meoSphere therefore gives the Luxembourg factory a raison d’être independent of IRIS². The two programmes will be able to share technologies, teams and facilities, but SES is presenting its network as a standalone investment, compatible with the European constellation. The campus could also serve as a base for other sovereign, commercial or military programmes. The aim goes beyond the delivery of a single generation of satellites: it is to establish industrial capacity in Luxembourg that SES can reuse.
The government is continuing to invest in testing facilities
The government is currently building an infrastructure around this ambition, few elements of which are merely symbolic. The Act of 22 July authorises up to €195.5m to lease, equip and operate the Kockelscheuer test centre for nine years. Excluding any potential termination compensation, the commitment amounts to €164.7m.
Of the total budget, 42 million will be used to fund the hire of test facilities and 8.9 million for secure office space. The initial fitting-out of the technical areas will cost up to 34.6 million. Offices and their security infrastructure account for 10.3 million, of which 7.8 million is for security. Some 2 million is earmarked for general site security.
The State will inject a further 66.7 million euros into a public limited company, which it will wholly own and which will operate the centre. According to the financial statement, around 55 million will be used to acquire testing equipment and 11.7 million to fund the company’s launch and its first few years of operation. The business plan forecasts a break-even point by 2029.
The centre will be equipped with cleanrooms, vibration test benches, thermal vacuum chambers, an anechoic chamber and radio-frequency testing facilities. The offices will feature Faraday cages and enhanced communications systems. The facility as a whole must meet ‘secret’ security requirements in order to house sensitive equipment, dual-use technologies and European or NATO-related defence programmes.
The building will be constructed by a private developer on a site at the Poudrerie in Luxembourg, and then leased by the State for nine years. If the State terminates the lease after this initial period, it will have to pay up to €30.8m, equivalent to 72 months’ rent for the test facilities. The State is thus equipping a private building at its own expense, providing capital for the public company that will operate it, and taking on a long-term rental commitment.
The law does not directly fund the SES plant. However, it provides, in the immediate vicinity, facilities that are too costly for a single company to bear the expense of. If SES does indeed occupy 60% of the site, the group could become both the main industrial operator in Kockelscheuer and the public centre’s largest client. Neither the Act nor the parliamentary documents specify whether the business plan is already based on its orders, what tariff will be applied to it, or what capacity will remain available for other operators.
Seven hectares is approximately 70,000 square metres. A 60% occupancy rate would correspond to some 42,000 square metres of land. This would be consistent with a 15,000-square-metre factory surrounded by its logistics areas, access roads, security perimeters and potential for expansion. However, the percentage cited by Al-Saleh to Paperjam has yet to be clarified: does it refer to the land, the buildings, the areas reserved for businesses, or the future capacity of the campus?
Debt levels are high once again
The company, too, must take a financial gamble. Following the integration of Intelsat, its turnover reached €1.6bn in the first half of 2026 and its order book stood at €6.4bn. However, on a like-for-like basis, revenue fell by 5% and adjusted EBITDA by 6.2%. SES incurred €444m in capital expenditure in the first half of the year and reported a negative adjusted free cash flow of €130m. Its net debt stands at approximately 4.4 times its EBITDA.
The group is maintaining its investment level at €700m for the whole of 2026, including IRIS² and the first phase of meoSphere. SES is also counting on the synergies from the integration of Intelsat to strengthen its cash flow generation. Another boost is on the horizon in the United States: the FCC has awarded it approximately $5.6bn gross in incentives to release 160MHz of C-band spectrum. The framework and amount have now been finalised, but the payments remain subject to compliance with the deadlines of December 2030 and June 2031. The net proceeds will be lower, after tax and payments due to certain former Intelsat creditors. The plant must therefore ramp up production whilst SES cuts costs, integrates Intelsat and funds several programmes simultaneously.
The Chamber of Commerce’s New Year’s address has lost none of its impact. Back in January, declaring Mr Adel Al-Saleh ‘mad’ was by no means absurd. The site was empty, the campus was two years behind schedule, and SES was not producing any satellites. Seven months later, the first electronic circuit boards have been manufactured, suppliers have been secured for the platforms of 28 spacecraft, 143 new recruits are helping to establish an industrial sector, and the government has committed nearly €200m to the supporting infrastructure.
The man who was named ‘CEO 2026’ in June at the WashingtonExec Awards – an accolade recognising leaders who are shaping the future of public procurement – did not wait for Kockelscheuer to be up and running before he began to bring it to life. His challenge now is to align three timelines: that of a factory taking shape, that of a campus still under construction, and that of satellite constellations due to be operational by 2030. If he succeeds, Luxembourg will no longer be merely the headquarters, financier or regulator of space activities conceived elsewhere. It will have crossed the line separating a country that operates satellites from one capable of industrialising their production.
