Poland’s largest and most advanced satellite reaches orbit

The largest and most technologically advanced Polish satellite to date successfully reached orbit on Friday.

EagleEye is the first satellite designed and built in Poland that weighs more than 50 kg. It will provide high-resolution satellite images that can be used by various sectors, from agriculture to the military.

“We are extremely happy to reveal to you that EagleEye has established communications,” wrote Creotech Instruments on X once the satellite reached orbit at 510 kilometres after being launched on Falcon 9, a space rocket produced by SpaceX.

Although scientists expected it to take up to 48 hours to establish communications, in the end it took less than an hour.

In the post, Creotech also shared the first test picture from the machine, showing the moment after the solar panels were opened. Part of the satellite and a view of the Earth are visible.

The satellite was jointly manufactured by three entities. Creotech built the satellite platform that carries equipment, while Scanway was responsible for the satellite’s telescope. The Space Research Centre at the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) supplied the telescope’s computer and developed the algorithms that control the satellite.

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EagleEye is Poland’s most advanced satellite. “This is a pioneering device – the first Polish satellite with such a large telescope,” Tomasz Barciński, head of the Laboratory of Mechatronics and Satellite Robotics at PAN, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

It will take pictures, with a resolution of up to one metre per pixel, in both visible and infrared light. Images from the satellite can, for example, help detect drought and evaluate the state of vegetation, Barciński told broadcaster TVN.

In order to provide pictures of such high resolution, the satellite will be able to reach Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) – an altitude of around 300-350 kilometres. This, however, required scientists to overcome a number of engineering challenges.

“Information on satellite construction is limited. The military hardly shares any, the industry shares it to a very limited extent…The data is kept secret,” Barciński told PAP. “That is why we had to develop most of the technology ourselves.”

In Europe, only eight corporate groups have the proven ability to create satellites weighing more than 50 kg. Worldwide, there are only a few dozen such companies. The main entry barrier is the high engineering complexity of such machines.

Poland’s first satellite launch, PW-Sat, 2012 was unsuccessful. The country’s second satellite – named “Lem” after the famous Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem – was successfully launched a year later.

In October 2023, Poland signed an agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA) that will allow the country to launch its first constellation, consisting of at least four satellites, in 2027.

Main image credit: We Need More Space/ YouTube

Agata Pyka

Agata Pyka is an assistant editor at Notes from Poland. She is a journalist and a political communication student at the University of Amsterdam. She specialises in Polish and European politics as well as investigative journalism and has previously written for Euractiv and The European Correspondent.