SWISSto12 has secured €73 million (approximately A$120 million) in financial support from European Space Agency member states through the HummingSat Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) partnership project, marking a major milestone for the fast-growing aerospace and satellite communications company.
The funding will accelerate the development and industrialisation of SWISSto12’s HummingSat platform, expand manufacturing capacity and support the rollout of new product innovations. The company said the investment responds to rising global demand for cost-effective, agile and sovereign satellite communications solutions across both government and commercial markets.
The investment will also enable further development of SWISSto12’s phased-array antenna technologies for use across low Earth orbit, medium Earth orbit and geostationary satellite payloads, as well as ground-based products such as user terminals. This will strengthen the company’s ability to support a broad range of communications requirements across both geostationary and non-geostationary orbits.
The additional ESA backing was approved under the ARTES HummingSat Partnership Project within ESA’s Connectivity and Secure Communications programme, following funding pledges at the 2025 ESA ministerial conference from Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Sweden and Norway, along with associate member Canada.
SWISSto12 said the funding supports a wider shift in the global satellite communications sector away from large, bespoke and costly geostationary spacecraft toward smaller, faster-to-deploy platforms built around software-defined, reconfigurable payloads and agile multi-orbit capabilities. Demand for satellite communications continues to rise, driven by requirements for broadband connectivity in aviation and maritime sectors, secure sovereign communications, connectivity in remote regions, safety-critical services, IoT applications and location-based services.
Developed in partnership with ESA, the HummingSat platform is scheduled for its first launch in 2027. The satellite is significantly smaller and more cost-efficient than traditional geostationary satellites, providing customers with a flexible platform to expand transponder capacity, deploy sovereign capabilities, enable network agility and introduce new services at speed.
Image Credit: SWISSto12
