THIRD SATELLITE IN EUROPE’S MOST ADVANCED SECURE COMMUNICATIONS CONSTELLATION

Airbus Defence and Space has been awarded a contract by Hisdesat to act as prime contractor for the development and construction of SpainSat NG-III, which Airbus describes as Europe’s most advanced secure communications satellite. The satellite builds on the design and implementation of its predecessors while introducing enhancements delivering greater operational agility, expanded bandwidth and improved protection against jamming and electronic threats. Airbus will design, integrate and test the satellite at its own facilities, drawing on heritage from the existing SpainSat NG family.

Alain Fauré, Head of Space Systems at Airbus Defence and Space, said that in the current geopolitical landscape SpainSat NG-III reinforced Spanish and European strategic autonomy by securing mission-critical communications for Spain, NATO and allied forces. The SpainSat NG programme provides high-capacity encrypted command-and-control connectivity for defence and government missions, and the company states the programme continues to mobilise both the European and Spanish space sectors.

ACTIVE ANTENNAS AND THE ELECTRONIC WARFARE ENVIRONMENT

The satellite is developed by Airbus in Spain and integrates advanced X-band receive and transmit active antennas. These provide the capability of 16 traditional antennas and are able to reconfigure their coverage up to 1,000 times per second while detecting and mitigating electronic interference with high precision. Thales Alenia Space in Spain leads the UHF and military Ka-band payloads.

The reconfiguration rate is the technically significant specification. A conventional satellite antenna produces a fixed beam pattern; an active electronically steered array can reshape its coverage without moving parts, and doing so a thousand times per second allows the satellite to respond to interference within timescales far shorter than a jamming source can adapt to. In practice this means coverage can be pulled away from a hostile emitter and concentrated on friendly terminals continuously through an engagement — a capability that has moved from desirable to essential as electronic warfare has become a routine feature of contemporary conflict.

NUCLEAR AND EMP HARDENING, AND COVERAGE FOOTPRINT

SpainSat NG-III incorporates hardened resiliency features intended to survive high-altitude nuclear events and electromagnetic pulses, meeting what Airbus describes as the most demanding NATO standards for signal intelligence, anti-jamming and anti-spoofing. Its operational coverage spans from North and South America across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Combined with SpainSat NG-I, launched in 2025, the constellation’s range covers two-thirds of the Earth — a footprint that includes the entirety of the African continent and therefore carries relevance for allied and partner operations across the region.