Satellites have become essential infrastructure. Financial markets rely on their timing signals. Military operations depend on their communications and surveillance. Navigation, disaster response, logistics, climate monitoring, most systems that underpin modern economies have some orbital component. Yet the politics and commercial logic of the space industry remain focused on a single question: How do you get things up there?
That is a reasonable preoccupation for a sector still maturing. Sovereign launch capability matters, and Europe’s push to reduce its dependence on non-European rockets makes strategic sense. But as the number of satellites grows and their role in critical infrastructure deepens, a different set of questions is becoming harder to ignore. How do you keep them functioning? What happens when something goes wrong in orbit? And who manages an environment that is becoming steadily more congested?
A gap in Europe’s strategic thinking
NATO’s space policy acknowledges that orbital systems are now central to defense and deterrence, as well as civilian and commercial operations. The European Union has begun addressing what it calls In-Space Operations and Services, a broad category covering satellite servicing, refuelling, debris management and in-orbit inspection. The direction is sensible. But investment and industrial capacity have not yet caught up.
Part of the reason is structural. The space industry has historically operated on a linear model: design a satellite, launch it, run it until it fails or runs out of fuel, then replace it. Each mission begins from scratch. Each failure ends in disposal. That logic was tolerable when launches were infrequent and the stakes relatively contained. It is increasingly difficult to justify as orbital dependency deepens and the cost, both financial and strategic, of losing critical assets grows.
The circular alternative is not a distant concept. It is already being built, piece by piece, by a new generation of companies whose entire business model is premised on the idea that satellites should be maintained, inspected, refuelled and extended rather than simply written off. This shift, from disposable to durable, is one of the most consequential transitions underway in the space sector today. Europe has a stake in whether it happens here or elsewhere.
Europe now has an opportunity not only to support a new generation of agile space companies, but to create the industrial and regulatory conditions required for a circular orbital economy to emerge in practice. That means enabling commercial models built around maintenance, inspection, servicing and life extension rather than replacement alone.
If this succeeds, it has the potential not only to strengthen its competitive position globally, but also to shape international norms around how orbital infrastructure is maintained and sustained in the decades ahead. The transition from disposable satellites to durable orbital systems is ultimately a strategic shift as much as it is a technological one.
In-orbit servicing: building relationships between orbital assets
One response is a category of activity that until recently sat at the speculative edge of the industry: in-orbit servicing. The concept, approaching an operational satellite to inspect it, refuel it or extend its working life, has existed in engineering literature for decades. What is new is that it is starting to happen commercially.
Infinite Orbits, founded in Singapore with a significant engineering presence in Toulouse, is one of the companies building that servicing layer. Through what the industry calls rendezvous and proximity operations, the ability to navigate precisely to another object in orbit, operate alongside it and eventually service it, the company embodies a broader point: The next phase of the space economy is being shaped not by established space powers alone, but by agile, boundary-crossing ventures operating without the constraints of legacy institutional structures. [Note: DEFEM provides branding and communications support to Infinite Orbits.]
Its OrbitGuard1 mission is an early demonstration of the category, described as the first commercial nanosatellite to operate in geostationary orbit. Geostationary orbit, sitting roughly 36,000 kilometers above Earth, is where many of the highest-value communications and defense satellites operate. It is also an environment where anomalies are very difficult to diagnose from the ground. Signals can confirm something is wrong; they generally cannot tell operators what physically happened.
The ability to get sensors close to a satellite in that environment changes things meaningfully. Not because every problem can be fixed remotely, but because knowing what has actually happened to an asset, particularly one that is part of a defence or intelligence architecture, has real operational value. It introduces awareness into an environment that has historically been defined by uncertainty.
As the company extends its operations toward low Earth orbit, where satellite constellations are expanding fastest and the tempo of activity is highest, the scope of what becomes serviceable grows with it. The ambition is not to occupy a niche, but to build operational capability across the full orbital environment.
The ecosystem question
What that means for Europe’s ecosystem is significant. Companies like Infinite Orbits do not just provide a service. They demonstrate that the most technically demanding parts of the new space economy are addressable from Europe, attract engineering talent, create supply chain demand and establish the kind of operational credibility that pulls institutional investment and partnerships behind them. In an industry where capability begets capability, that compounding effect matters. The question for European policymakers is less whether this kind of company can succeed, and more whether Europe will build the conditions to keep it, and others like it, anchored here.
This follows the same logic that drives maintenance programs for aircraft or offshore platforms. Complex, high-value systems are not treated as disposable, partly because replacement is expensive, and partly because the continuity of service is worth protecting in its own right. Orbital infrastructure is moving in the same direction, if more slowly.
Europe’s industrial opportunity
Europe has relevant capabilities spread across its industrial base: robotics, autonomous systems, AI, satellite manufacturing and operational space technology. The problem is that these are fragmented across national programs, different funding structures and companies of varying scale. That is a familiar critique of European industrial policy, and not one that disappears easily.
But what companies like Infinite Orbits illustrate is that the fragmentation is not total. European talent and ambition are already producing globally competitive capabilities in the most technically demanding parts of the new space economy, often ahead of institutional frameworks that were designed for a different era. The policy question is not whether Europe can compete in this space, it already is. It has historically played a leading role in shaping industrial and regulatory standards. The emerging in-orbit servicing market presents an opportunity to apply that same coordination capability to the long-term sustainability and resilience of orbital infrastructure.
The question is whether European institutions will move quickly enough to support and anchor that capability before it scales elsewhere.
The Commission’s ISOS framework is an attempt to create that coherence. Whether it generates enough commercial momentum, and whether European institutions are willing to act as early customers for the technology, is still an open question. The United States has moved faster, with DARPA, the Space Force and commercial operators all funding proximity operations work. Japan and China are investing in similar capabilities. Europe’s window is not open indefinitely.
The longer-term question
Beyond any single company or mission, there is a broader question about how the orbital environment should be managed over the coming decades. Traffic will keep increasing. Dependency on orbital systems will deepen. The economics of satellite deployment have shifted dramatically, but most of that change has been on the supply side. What happens to assets once they are in orbit, and who is responsible for them, remains underdeveloped, in both regulatory and commercial terms.
The case for designing satellites that can be serviced, refuelled, or upgraded rather than simply written off is not primarily an environmental one, though debris management matters. It is an argument about the economics and resilience of infrastructure. Infrastructure that can be maintained is infrastructure that can be relied upon. The linear model produces debris and dependency in equal measure. The circular model, still early, still being built, offers something more durable.
Europe has historically approached space as a question of access: getting there. The challenge now is what comes after: maintaining, servicing and managing orbital assets over the long term. The companies already building those capabilities are not waiting for policy to catch up. Europe will need faster procurement pathways, earlier institutional adoption and regulatory frameworks that allow specialised commercial operators to scale.
Rosa Schmidt is the founder of DEFEM Agency, a London-based brand consultancy working with companies across deeptech, space and emerging technologies. With a background spanning strategic communications, storytelling and industrial positioning, her work focuses on helping technically complex organizations translate innovation into clear market narratives, public visibility and long-term brand value.
Conflict of Interest Disclosure: DEFEM provides branding and communications support to Infinite Orbits.
SpaceNews is committed to publishing our community’s diverse perspectives. Whether you’re an academic, executive, engineer or even just a concerned citizen of the cosmos, send your arguments and viewpoints to opinion (at) spacenews.com to be considered for publication online or in our next magazine. If you have something to submit, read some of our recent opinion articles and our submission guidelines to get a sense of what we’re looking for. The perspectives shared in these opinion articles are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent their employers or professional affiliations.
