4iG orders a GEO satellite from Northrop Grumman. Photo: 4iG

Hungarian company 4iG Space and Defense Technologies has signed with Northrop Grumman to develop the nation’s first communications satellite under a deal announced Tuesday. 

Northrop Grumman will build HUGEO — a Ka-band satellite based on its GEOStar-3 platform. 4iG said the satellite is set to be completed in 2030 and is a contract “worth several hundred million dollars.” 

HUGEO will be part of the HUSAT Hungarian satellite program, announced in 2024. HUSAT will also consist of an eight satellite Earth Observation (EO) constellation built by 4iG SDT, which includes both electro-optical satellites and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites.

4iG and Northrop Grumman teams signed the contract during U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Budapest this week. In addition, 4iG SDT has also signed an agreement with L3Harris to collaborate on digitalization and the industrial integration of the HIMARS rocket launcher system in Hungary. The company also signed an agreement with Apex Technology aimed at establishing a joint venture to establish small satellite manufacturing capacity in Europe. 

“Today, we have signed a historic agreement with Northrop Grumman to provide Hungary with a critical, dual-use satellite communications capability, which is a technology gap in today’s geopolitical situation. Furthermore, our agreements with L3Harris and Apex Technology, as well as our previous collaborations and investments with Lockheed Martin and Axiom Space, demonstrate 4iG SDT’s ability to collaborate with multiple global technology partners and integrate Hungarian industrial and engineering competencies to create new, exportable, NATO-compatible capabilities and industrial capacities in Hungary and the region,” Dr. István Sárhegyi, president and CEO of 4iG SDT said in a statement. 

This marks the first publicly reported GEOStar order of 2026. Northrop Grumman previously built two GEOStar satellites for the Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission (ASBM), which launched in 2024, and two SES C-band replacement satellites, SES-18 and SES-19, which launched in 2023. 

GEOStar also forms the basis of Northrop Grumman’s servicing vehicles, the Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) and Mission Robotics Vehicle (MRV).