Loft Orbital and Helsing partner for AI-enabled ISR satellites

Loft Orbital, a multi-national space infrastructure company and Helsing announced a new partnership to deploy AI-enabled ISR satellites using their own capital, at the Paris AI summit on the 11th of February. 

The two companies plan to deploy a constellation of multiple satellites into low earth orbit carrying optical and radio frequency sensors as well as Helsing’s artificial intelligence (AI). The AI means that it will be possible for the computer on the satellite to autonomously detect, identify, and classify military vehicles and systems before passing that data back to earth. 

“Loft and Helsing want to build persistent, near-real-time intelligence capabilities for defence customers. Europe needs to have sovereign access to such space assets – and it needs it now. To accelerate this, both companies are investing their own capital,” Gundbert Scherf, the Helsing co-founder said. 

The Helsing press release adds that the satellites will be designed to deliver real-time, tactical intelligence to defence customers. This essentially means that customers would get the intelligence as the satellite sees or senses it. This is made increasingly possible by satellites using other satellites as communications relays, or by transmitting directly to ground stations and other users. 

One example of a system designed to do this is the Northrop Grumman Deep Sensing and Targeting (DSaT) aircraft, which is expected to fuse intelligence from a variety of sources including satellites to assist with real time decision making and targeting. 

The latency of the information provided by the satellites would depend to a significant extent on how many there are as well as their inclination. A typical satellite in low earth orbit can be expected to complete one orbit of the earth in around 90 minutes. A constellation of three satellites would reduce this to 30 minutes. Helsing states that the constellation will be designed to support “border surveillance, troop movement tracking, and infrastructure protection,” which indicates they will primarily be focused on Europe in the first instance.

Launches have been pre-booked for 2026 and satellite buses are already under construction, indicating a potential launch date for the project. Marc Fontaine, president of Helsing France said that, “This partnership combines New Space with New Defence approaches: providing swiftly, self-funded and “as a service” the new capabilities required to support and complement sovereign operations.” This indicates that the companies intend to provide their intelligence outputs as a service to government customers, perhaps in a similar fashion to Airbus and Maxar. 

Helsing and Loft announced a successful project in July 2024, with Helsing having deployed an AI-enabled radio frequency sensor to Loft’s YAM-6 satellite node, which Loft has designed for AI applications. The tests focused, “on real-time onboard radio frequency signal detection and their characterisation enabling upcoming military grade Signal Intelligence and Cognitive Anti-Jamming applications,” the press release said. This was not Loft’s first integration of AI on the edge, either. In November 2023 Agenium Space, a French company specialising in space-based AI, reported that it had successfully deployed its deep neural networks to Loft’s YAM-3 satellite and that they had conducted object detection on what appeared to be synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. 

Company profile: Loft Orbital

Loft Orbital has positioned itself as a space infrastructure company that provides easier access for customers to space launches. It facilitates the launch and builds its own standard satellite for partners to integrate their own technology onto. Loft generally doesn’t build the payloads but takes care of everything around deploying and maintaining a fleet of satellites. The company maintains an inventory of pre-built satellites and pre-booked launches designed to decrease the time taken to get assets into orbit. Loft secured its series C funding valued at $170 million in January 2025. The company’s customers include  NASA, Microsoft, BAE Systems, the US Space Force, The French Space Agency (CNES), the European Space Agency, EarthDaily, and of course Helsing. 

Calibre comment

Space-based ISR and rapid identification of priority targets throughout an adversary’s depth is likely a priority for many western armed forces that consider Russia to be a major threat. Real time intelligence from space may enable and support the identification of priority targets like ammunition dumps, air defence systems, force concentrations, or bottlenecks in a supply chain that can be engaged using deep strike assets. There are few if any systems that an armed force can deploy – an ISR platform like the MQ-9 UAV for instance – that would survive long enough to provide that sort of targeting data. 

By Sam Cranny-Evans, published on the 12th February, 2025.