ESA and Creotech’s signing ceremony in Warsaw on April 15. Photo: Creotech

Polish space company Creotech Instruments will build three Earth observation (EO) satellites for Poland under a new contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) announced April 15. The contract is worth nearly 52 million euros ($59 million) and the project is named CAMILA, Country Awareness Mission in Land Analysis.

Poland’s Ministry of Development and Technology ordered the national satellite constellation.  

Creotech Instruments is the prime contractor of the system, which will consist of three observation satellites and a ground segment. The three satellites will feature different sensors — one radar, one high-resolution optical and one lower-resolution optical, and the contract includes options for a potential fourth satellite. 

Creotech is obligated 26 million euros ($30 million) of the funds, and the rest will be allocated to subcontractors – Polish companies including CloudFerro, Eycore, GMV’s Polish subsidiary,  KP Labs, and Scanway. 

“CAMILA is a project of strategic importance, both for Creotech Instruments and the entire European space sector. It is not only a confirmation of our technological maturity and competence in implementing the most advanced satellite missions, but also an expression of deep confidence in our business model and the Polish satellite platform called HyperSat, which has been developed over the last years,” commented Grzegorz Brona, president of Creotech’s management board. 

A significant part of the systems that will be used in this mission were tested in space as part of Creotech’s test mission EagleEye, an optical satellite based on the HyperSat satellite platform. The mission tested the satellite’s subsystems, but suffered communication issues that left it unable to receive telemetry data. 

Creotech is also building four microsatellites for the Polish Armed Forces under the MIKROGLOB program, contracted in December 2024. Poland is investing in sovereign space capabilities, and also ordered two Pléiades Neo EO satellites from Airbus in early 2023.