The new ESA investment will accelerate maturation of the HummingSat product line and the associated manufacturing ramp up needed to meet growing demand for cost effective, agile and sovereign satellite communications. SWISSto12 plans to use the funding to expand its production capacity and speed up introduction of new payload and platform innovations that target both government and commercial operators.
Support channeled through ESA's Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) HummingSat Partnership Project was endorsed at the November 2025 ESA Council at Ministerial Level. Member States Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway and Associate Member Canada backed the initiative, underscoring broad political and industrial support for small geostationary satellites designed and built in Europe.
SWISSto12 positions HummingSat as an answer to a SatCom market that is moving away from large, bespoke and expensive spacecraft towards smaller, faster and cheaper assets that exploit software defined and reconfigurable payload architectures. The company expects demand to rise as operators seek multi orbit capabilities and more flexible transponder capacity to serve data hungry applications.
The funding will also support further development of phased array antenna technologies for use on LEO, MEO and GEO satellite payloads as well as on ground products such as user terminals. These antennas are intended to broaden the range of services SWISSto12 can support, including links to and from both geostationary and non geostationary orbits.
HummingSat, developed in partnership with ESA and scheduled for a first launch in 2027 for SES, is significantly smaller and more cost efficient than traditional geostationary satellites. The platform is designed to allow operators to quickly add capacity, deploy sovereign communications capability and roll out new services using reconfigurable, software defined payloads; a subsequent mission for Viasat is planned after the SES satellite.
ESA officials highlight the project as part of a wider effort to maintain and enhance Europe's role in the global satellite communications sector. Laurent Jaffart, ESA Director of Connectivity and Secure Communications, said ESA is focused on supporting cost effective satellite system solutions that can meet the sector's rapidly rising capacity and performance demands and help secure Europe's future in space.
SWISSto12 sees the latest institutional and private funding as a signal to the market that it sits at the center of innovation in satellite communications. Chief Executive Officer and Founder Emile de Rijk said the company's growing suite of agile, cost effective and high performance SatCom solutions is intended to address key challenges facing the space economy, including the need for satellite sovereignty that has historically been out of reach for many nations.
Beyond HummingSat, SWISSto12 develops advanced radio frequency components, payloads and systems that use proprietary 3D printing technologies and associated RF design techniques. These products aim to deliver lighter, more compact and highly performant RF functionality for satellite missions, reinforcing the company's position as one of the fastest growing aerospace manufacturers in Europe and the United States.
The HummingSat ARTES Partnership Project sits within ESA's Connectivity and Secure Communications activities and its broader ARTES programme line of Partnership Projects. Through these long term collaborations with industry and satellite operators, ESA seeks to enable major satellite communication systems, new value adding services and in orbit validation campaigns that strengthen the competitiveness of European and Canadian companies in global markets.
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