A holding company affiliated with the Emirati royal family is investing more than $100 million in a new joint venture between Abu Dhabi-based Marlan Space and startup Loft Orbital to expand domestic satellite manufacturing capabilities in the region.
The joint venture, called Orbitworks, will be the first commercial company to mass-produce satellites in the UAE. Majority ownership is held by Marlan Space, a new space company affiliated with the International Holding Company. IHC itself is majority controlled by the Royal Group, a conglomerate owned by Abu Dhabi’s ruling royal family.
The UAE has big ambitions for space, and it has the money to do it. The UAE Space Agency (UAESA) is less than a decade old, but the government has spent billions of dollars investing in domestic capabilities and forming partnerships with other countries and commercial companies. In 2019, the UAE sent its first astronaut (or privately funded “spaceflight participant,” as NASA puts it) to the ISS. Two years later, the UAE became the latest in a small group of countries to send a probe to Mars’ orbit.
In addition to UAESA, there are several other major players in the Gulf state’s space ecosystem: Space42, a merger of Emirates satellite company Yahsat and data analytics company Bayanat; the EDGE Group, a major industrial prime; and a handful of universities and research institutes, such as the National Space and Science Technology Center. The country is on the cusp of deploying a satellite constellation and building its own satellite manufacturing capabilities.
Loft Orbital CEO Pierre-Damien Vaujour said in a recent interview that he has long been interested in the UAE’s space ecosystem. “Even when I started Loft, I knew from the beginning that I wanted to be active in the UAE and contribute to the ecosystem there.”
San Francisco-based Loft buys satellite buses in bulk and flies payloads for its customers using a standardized modular payload adapter that integrates the customer’s hardware with the spacecraft. Loft handles all launch integration and operates the spacecraft once it’s in orbit. The startup can also conduct “virtual missions,” where customers can deploy applications into orbit that leverage onboard sensors, computing, and cameras.
Vaujour said Loft’s flexible hardware will allow the JV to work with a wide range of emerging players in the Middle East space ecosystem. “Loft can work with any payload vendor, any bus or subsystem vendor, any ground station vendor, any cloud vendor. We are providing the JV with a playbook for satellite production, operations and technology,” he said.
Orbitworks plans to manufacture up to 50 500kg satellites per year, with hardware for the first 10 satellites already procured. Operating from a 50,000-square-foot facility in Abu Dhabi, the first satellite platform is expected to be assembled, integrated, and tested by early 2025.
Vaujour said the startup has contracted with Marlan to ensure Loft remains compliant with U.S. regulations and export licenses. Loft Federal, a separate entity from Loft, will continue to provide work on classified contracts for U.S. national security clients.
“This organization has a mission to be a national champion in satellite constellation production and operation, which is quite new,” Vaujour said. “We’re starting small, but the goal is to really scale this to another scale. The national, regional and international ambitions for something like this are very large.”
