Greece deploys first national ICEYE radar satellites for disaster monitoring

by Erica Marchand
Paris, France (SPX) Nov 28, 2025

Two new ICEYE radar satellites have entered service under Greece's National Small Satellite Programme, expanding the country's capacity to track floods, wildfires, landslides and other hazards as well as areas of security interest on land and at sea.

The pair of synthetic aperture radar spacecraft were launched on 28 November 2025 on SpaceX's Transporter-15 rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, sharing the flight with ESA's two HydroGNSS satellites and the next set of IRIDE satellites for Italy.

Financed by Greece through the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility, the Greek National Small Satellite Programme ultimately foresees a constellation of 13 satellites grouped into four instrument classes, combining radar, optical and thermal-infrared sensors to support disaster management, environmental monitoring and national security applications.

The project is led by the Hellenic Space Center and the Greek Ministry of Digital Governance, with ESA providing the programme framework and supporting ICEYE in developing the two radar satellites.

Each ICEYE spacecraft has a mass of about 120 kilograms and carries an X-band synthetic aperture radar that can operate in multiple imaging modes, supplying day-and-night observations at resolutions down to approximately 25 centimetres.

Under an agreement with ICEYE, the company will control and operate the satellites in orbit, while Greece receives access to ICEYE's wider commercial radar constellation to increase coverage over national areas of interest as the domestic programme is built up.

According to ESA's Director of Earth Observation Programmes Simonetta Cheli, the Greek radar mission and Italy's IRIDE satellites on the same launch illustrate how national Earth observation systems developed with ESA can be integrated into a broader European data framework for shared civil and security uses.

Greece's Minister of Digital Governance and AI Dimitrios Papastergiou said the two ICEYE satellites will strengthen Greece's ability to observe its territory and surrounding seas in all weather and lighting conditions, improving response to natural disasters and supporting the development of the Greek space sector.

Additional satellites are scheduled to join the Greek constellation next year, including four thermal-infrared spacecraft built by OroraTech and seven high-resolution optical satellites from Open Cosmos, further extending coverage for environmental monitoring, agriculture and urban planning.