A two-day international space summit organised in Paris began on Wednesday with an announcement of a $1 billion UAE investment in France.
Marlan Space, a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi global investment firm Marlan Holding, and Loft Orbital, which is based in the US and has a French chief executive, are linking up with French company Mistral AI to develop a constellation of 50 satellites equipped with onboard AI.
The satellites will carry radar, optical and other sensors, and are built to serve government users in France, Europe and the UAE alongside a global base of commercial customers, Loft Orbital said in a statement.
"Fifty satellites, working together in groups with different capabilities as one system, make this one of the most advanced constellations in the world," said Dr Hamdullah Mohib, acting chief executive of Orbitworks.
This week, an 80 per cent stake in Marlan Holding was acquired by Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Company amid growth in the global space economy.
More than 90 countries are represented at the summit, but US technology companies withdrew after pressure from the White House, which considers the event to be too Euro-centric.
"We will have a series of opportunities, common investments, common programmes and partnerships to strengthen, obviously, the European space industry and space research, but also partnerships with a lot of other countries," French President Emmanuel Macron said in his opening statement at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Additionally, the Emirati defence company Edge signed a deal with Munich's the Exploration Company to work towards a sea-based launch system based in the UAE, the Elysee said in a document listing more than 50 new business agreements agreed on at the summit.
Abu Dhabi start-up Tactica AI signed a separate deal with France’s Safran to deepen co-operation in space data analysis. Edge subsidiary Fada said it would collaborate with France’s Infinite Orbits on Space Situational Awareness surveillance capacity in low-Earth orbit.
International co-operation
In a sign of tight UAE-French relations in the space industry, Mr Mohib, acting chief executive of the satellite company Orbitworks, was among a dozen international chief executives who held a closed-door meeting with Mr Macron before the summit's launch on Wednesday. Orbitworks is a joint venture between Marlan Space and Loft Orbital.
Last month, Orbitworks signed a deal with France in one of the first examples of a European government space agency becoming a customer of a satellite constellation owned and built in the Middle East. Orbitworks also shipped the Altair-1 satellite to the US for a launch with SpaceX in October.
UAE astronaut Dr Sultan Al Neyadi, who is also the Minister of State for Youth Affairs, was among an Emirates delegation that also included Space Agency chairman and Sports Minister Dr Ahmad Al Falasi.
Speaking alongside a panel of international astronauts, Dr Al Neyadi said the rapid growth of the UAE's two-decade-old space programme was rooted in international co-operation.
"We’re open to any sort of collaboration and international deals in a way to push this with the capability of knowledge transfer as well," he said. He recalled past partnerships with Russia, the US, Japan and South Korea.
In 2023, Dr Al Neyadi spent six months on the International Space Station and became the first Arab astronaut to perform a spacewalk. He has become a champion for the UAE's space programme and its astronauts.
In June, he and astronaut Maj Hazza Al Mansouri completed Nasa's geology training in New Mexico, as the UAE's space programme prepares for new destinations, such as the Moon.
About 20 astronauts are attending the summit, most of them from western countries. Italy has the largest contingent with three astronauts: Samantha Cristoforetti, Luca Parmitano and Andrea Patassa.
