New Orbit secures launch slot for its first satellite
UK-based space technology startup New Orbit has secured a launch slot for its first satellite, marking the startup’s first commercial mission to carry customer payloads to Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO).
New Orbit’s satellite, dubbed NEO-1, will launch in Q3 2028. The launch slot has been secured via the European launch broker RIDE!
NEO-1 is the first commercial satellite built to sustain operations between 200 and 300 km above Earth, which is two to three times closer to Earth than most conventional satellites. NEO-1 is a shared rocket launch that will carry various satellites at once to drop them into VLEO, the first VLEO mission open to external payload developers. It gives payload providers and operators a route to VLEO without designing and building their own spacecraft.
Historically, satellites operating at these altitudes have been difficult to sustain because atmospheric drag pulls them towards Earth, atomic oxygen erodes exposed materials, and aerodynamic torques can destabilise spacecraft.
Satellites flying closer to Earth help capture higher-resolution imagery with smaller, cheaper systems. For example, an instrument delivering 50 cm resolution from 500 km would deliver close to 25 cm from NEO-1’s operating orbit, with no redesign and no additional R&D.
New Orbit’s purpose-built satellites and in-house propulsion system are designed to overcome VLEO’s conditions and operate reliably there for five years.
Only two missions have ever sustained operations below 300 km: ESA’s GOCE, which held its orbit for more than four and a half years, and JAXA’s Super Low Altitude Test Satellite “Tsubame”, which holds the Guinness World Record for the lowest orbital altitude by an Earth observation satellite at 167.4 km.
The first customer New Orbit is announcing is Genesia, the Japan-based optics specialist that built the telescope with which Tsubame captured images from its record-low altitude of 167.4 km. Two further customers have already booked slots on the mission.
The mission responds to growing market demand for lower-cost, high-performing space assets, from sharper imagery and faster revisit to direct-to-device communications from smaller satellites.
The launch announcement follows New Orbit’s oversubscribed $18.5 million Series A, led by Voyager Ventures.
Anatolii Papulov, CEO and Co-Founder of New Orbit, said: “Only two missions in history have stayed in VLEO. Today, the people behind both come together on one mission: the engineers who built and flew GOCE sit on our technical board, and Genesia, whose telescope imaged Earth from Tsubame’s record altitude, joins NEO-1 as our first announced payload partner. That brings an extraordinary concentration of VLEO experience onto one commercial mission, and for the first time it is open for anyone in the industry to fly with.”
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