{"id":647951,"date":"2026-11-01T15:58:29","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T15:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/647951\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T15:58:29","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T15:58:29","slug":"sovereign-satellite-network-how-finlands-reorbit-plans-to-help-australia-build-a-local-alternative-to-starlink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/647951\/","title":{"rendered":"Sovereign satellite network: How Finland\u2019s ReOrbit plans to help Australia build a local alternative to Starlink"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"David<\/p>\n

November 1, 2026 \u2014 1:45pm<\/p>\n

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Helsinki: A Finnish satellite maker says it could help Australia build its own alternative to Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink, made locally and owned by Australians.<\/p>\n

ReOrbit, which assembles communications satellites for defence customers inside a former Ford car factory in Helsinki, wants to set up manufacturing in Australia with local companies and the government.<\/p>\n

\"AA SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 53 Starlink satellites. (Craig Bailey\/Florida Today via AP)AP<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very interested personally, making this happen in Australia,\u201d chief commercial officer Markus R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen told this masthead in an interview. He plans to visit in February.<\/p>\n

The pitch arrives as Australia leans harder on satellites it does not control. From next year, the Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation requires the mobile carriers to provide basic outdoor voice and text coverage through a low-earth-orbit satellite partner, so a phone with no tower in range can still send a message.<\/p>\n

\"ReOrbit\u00a0chiefReOrbit\u00a0chief commercial officer Markus R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen.<\/p>\n

The Australian Telecommunications Alliance, the industry\u2019s peak body, says that market \u201cdoes not currently provide any competitive options\u201d. Telstra<\/a> and Optus have both signed with Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink for satellite-to-phone services.<\/p>\n

In late October, Musk said SpaceX had restricted<\/a> Ukraine\u2019s Starlink service, accusing its military of breaching the terms by using it for \u201coffensive drone strikes\u201d, which Ukrainian officials dispute. Ukraine says the problems hampered its defensive operations for more than a week. Musk had earlier denied deliberately throttling the service, which was restored after US President Donald Trump said he had told Musk to \u201cput it back\u201d.<\/p>\n

R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen said it matters little to someone shopping online whose satellite carries the signal. For defence, he said, it is \u201cextremely important who controls the satellite connectivity\u201d. \u201cCan somebody turn it off? Can somebody slow it down?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sovereignty used to mean leasing a reserved slice of capacity on another operator\u2019s satellite, he said. Governments now want the whole system. \u201cI want to own my satellites, my ground station. I want to operate the satellite,\u201d he said, describing what customers ask for, with data landing in their own country and \u201cno restrictions or kill switch\u201d outside it.<\/p>\n

Australia would need more of them than most. Finland could cover its critical communications with a single geostationary satellite, which sits fixed about 36,000 kilometres above the equator, R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen said. \u201cFor Australia it\u2019s a massive land area,\u201d he said, and several would be needed.<\/p>\n

\"ElonElon Musk\u2019s Starlink has agreements with both Telstra and Optus.AP Photo\/Julia Demaree Nikhinson<\/p>\n

A sovereign version of Starlink, using satellites about 550 kilometres up, would need a constellation of about 600 to 1000 satellites for Australia, he said, though a service could start with fewer.<\/p>\n

ReOrbit would act as the systems integrator and hand over the know-how, he said. \u201cWith a company like ReOrbit we could actually do it in Australia and everything could be owned by locals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"OneOne of ReOrbit\u2019s satellites.<\/p>\n

Australia has tried this before. In 2024, the Defence Department cancelled JP9102, a $6.9 billion sovereign military satellite communications system built around new geostationary satellites, a year and a half after awarding the contract to Lockheed Martin Australia.<\/p>\n

ReOrbit was founded in 2019 and has about 160 staff, adding more than 10 a month, R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen said. Its biggest investors are Finnish pension funds, including Varma and Elo. That helps in defence sales, R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen said, because governments wary of choosing between American and Chinese suppliers can buy Finnish without upsetting anyone. \u201cIf you buy from Finland, nobody cares.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Elon<\/a><\/p>\n

Chief executive Sethu Saveda Suvanam has pitched ReOrbit as an affordable alternative to Starlink for countries that cannot build their own satellites, TechCrunch reported when the company raised \u20ac45 million ($71.7 million) last year, in what the site described as a record round for a European space start-up. He said it had signed a contract worth \u201csome hundreds of millions\u201d with one country and memorandums of understanding with others.<\/p>\n

ReOrbit\u2019s first satellite, which runs artificial intelligence on board to analyse images before sending them down, is due to launch in February on a SpaceX rideshare flight. R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen said whether SpaceX keeps launching rivals\u2019 satellites is \u201ccompletely on them to decide\u201d, though he expects it to, because the business helps pay for its rockets. The launch is set for the same month as his Australian trip.<\/p>\n

David Swan travelled to Finland as a guest of the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.<\/p>\n

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Close\"DavidDavid Swan<\/a> is the technology editor for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously technology editor for The Australian newspaper.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"November 1, 2026 \u2014 1:45pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-647951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}