We have booked a launch slot in Q3 2028 for our first customer mission
2026-09-10
NEO-1, our first satellite, has a confirmed launch slot in Q3 2028. It will operate between 200 and 300 kilometres above Earth, two to three times closer than most satellites fly today.
For the first time, VLEO is open to anyone. A company with an imager, a sensor or a communications payload no longer needs to design and build its own spacecraft to reach this orbit. They book a slot, fly with us, and test and validate their technology at altitudes that have never been available to industry.
Watch the film. NEO-1, our first mission to Very Low Earth Orbit: https://youtu.be/a99omkgsV8M
Booked launch in Q3 2028
NEO-1, NewOrbit’s first satellite, will launch in Q3 2028 and the launch slot has been secured via the European launch broker RIDE!.
“More than ever, RIDE!’s mission is to enable access to space for critical payloads, in Europe and all around the world. NewOrbit is definitely one of the most ambitious SpaceTech companies I have met, pioneering a unique VLEO technology. We are very proud and honoured to count NewOrbit as one of our most valued customers.” -Valentin Benoit, CEO of RIDE!
Why nobody stays
Reaching VLEO has never been the problem. Staying there is. Atmospheric drag pulls spacecraft back towards Earth within weeks. Atomic oxygen erodes exposed materials. Aerodynamic torques can destabilise a spacecraft that was perfectly stable a few hundred kilometres higher.
Sustained operations at these altitudes have been so difficult that, in the whole history of spaceflight, only two civilian missions have ever managed it. Both were scientific. ESA's GOCE held its orbit for more than four and a half years, mapping Earth's gravity field in unprecedented detail. JAXA's Super Low Altitude Test Satellite, Tsubame, descended to 167.4 kilometres and still holds the Guinness World Record for the lowest orbital altitude by an Earth observation satellite.
The first commercial mission
NEO-1 is the first commercial satellite built to sustain operations between 200 and 300 kilometres. It is purpose-built for these conditions, with our own in-house propulsion system fighting the drag that ended every earlier mission, and it is designed to operate reliably there for five years.
It is also a rideshare mission. GOCE and Tsubame each flew as single, dedicated science programmes. NEO-1 carries multiple payloads, and it is the first mission at these altitudes open to external payload developers.
Genesia is first on board
Our first announced payload customer is Genesia, the Japanese optics specialist that built the telescope with which Tsubame captured images from its record-low altitude. They are one of the very few optics houses in the world with proven experience imaging from VLEO, and they are coming back for more.
"Genesia has long been interested in the commercial potential of VLEO observation technology, building on our heritage from JAXA's SLATS mission. The NEO-1 satellite is an advanced initiative of the utmost importance to us. Payloads carried by satellites such as NEO-1 can deliver better performance than larger payloads operating at standard altitudes. We are deeply honoured to walk this path alongside NewOrbit, a pioneer and innovative platform provider." -Norihide Takeyama, CEO, Genesia Corporation
Two further customers have already confirmed their slots on NEO-1.
Why flying closer matters
The physics of VLEO is favourable. Halve your distance to the ground and you roughly double your resolution, with the same hardware.
An instrument delivering 50 centimetre resolution from 500 kilometres would deliver close to 25 centimetres from NEO-1's orbit. No redesign. No time or dollar spent on R&D. The same telescope, simply flown closer.
For payload developers, that changes the economics. Smaller, lighter, cheaper instruments deliver what used to take flagship-class optics. The same holds for communications payloads, which reach the ground with a stronger signal over a shorter distance. NEO-1 is an opportunity to more than double payload performance and validate equipment below 300 kilometres.
The people who flew GOCE
We're also announcing that four senior figures from ESA's GOCE mission have joined our technical advisory board. They are Dr Mark Drinkwater, the mission scientist; Dr Michael Fehringer, its propulsion manager; Alex Popescu, its systems engineer; and Paolo Ferri, who directed GOCE's flight operations at ESA.
The teams behind the only two civilian missions ever to stay in VLEO are now on the NEO-1 mission, and that mission is open for anyone in the industry to fly with. NEO-1 is being built with the people who have done this before.
"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." -Anatolii Papulov, CEO and co-founder, NewOrbit
What happens next
This announcement follows our oversubscribed $18.5 million Series A, led by Voyager Ventures. That funding builds the NEO Production Complex in the UK's Thames Valley, opening in 2027. NEO-1 will be integrated there, then launch in Q3 2028 as the first commercial satellite ever to carry customer payloads between 200 and 300 kilometres.
The orbit has been empty for sixty years. In 2028 it gets its first commercial tenant, and there is still room on board.
If you have a payload that would benefit from flying closer to Earth, write to us at sales@neworbit.space.