Caelum provides sale-leaseback facilities and finance leases for satellites and ground stations. Working with banks, export-credit agencies and institutional investors, we handle the financing — you focus on the mission.
Caelum was founded to bridge the gap between space infrastructure operators and institutional capital. The commercial space sector has outgrown grant funding and venture equity. Caelum adapts the asset-backed leasing that scaled aviation and shipping, with structures designed around how satellites are licensed, operated and valued.
Caelum's founder brings more than twenty years of aviation and maritime structured finance and leasing, supported by advisers in tax, law, insurance and the space sector. We work with operators, manufacturers, and funding partners to deliver financing solutions that preserve equity, diversify funding, and keep missions on track.
You have a satellite or ground station that needs financing. We start with a conversation about the asset, the operator, and the revenue contract.
We design a financing structure around your asset and its contract profile.
We bring senior lenders, export-credit cover and equity co-investors into each deal. You receive funding without diluting your equity.
Our relationship doesn't end at closing. Caelum works alongside operators through the life of the lease — supporting refinancing, portfolio growth, and future asset additions as your business scales.
Sale-leaseback lets you monetise assets already in orbit or on the ground, freeing cash to fund the next phase of your roadmap.
A lease replaces a large upfront outlay with scheduled payments and adds a funding source priced off the satellite or ground station and its contract, alongside corporate debt. Under IFRS 16 the lease is recognised on balance sheet, so the benefit is the capital released. Accounting treatment is confirmed transaction by transaction.
Financing sits at the asset level, not on your equity structure. Your capitalisation table — the record of who owns shares, options, and convertible instruments in your company — stays exactly as it is. No new investors, no board seats, no valuation pressure.
The lease term follows the contracted revenue and the remaining life of the asset. At the end of the term the operator typically holds a purchase option, so the value left in the satellite stays with the business that flew it.
Five things have changed at once. Together they make a satellite financeable the way an aircraft is.
active GEO satellites were launched 15 or more years ago
Commercial GEO orders reached 14 by September 2026, against about 29 replacements falling due in 2029, when satellites ordered now would arrive.
See who owns them in the GEO tracker →Caelum GEO tracker, updated weekly from CelesTrak. Orders: Novaspace, via the Space Asset Finance Tracker.
Capital is locked in single satellites worth hundreds of millions each. A sale-leaseback releases it without touching the operator’s equity.
of GEO satellite orders expected to be software-capable by 2032
A software-defined satellite can be reconfigured and moved in orbit, so it can serve a second operator. That residual value is what makes it leasable.
Watch the 72-second explainer ↓NSR, Software-Defined Satellites, 3rd ed., as cited by Analysys Mason.
of IRIS² capital to come from private investors
Europe wants sovereign capacity, and the EU Space Act is going through the European Parliament.
What the vote means for satellite owners →One specialist lessor has shown that operators will lease. Ireland built this market for aircraft; Caelum is building it for orbit.
For sixty years a satellite was built for one job. Here is what changed, and why it makes a satellite leasable.
For 60 years, a satellite was built for one job. One customer, one coverage map, locked in before it ever left the ground. Engineers call it a bent pipe. A signal goes up, bends, and comes back down to the same fixed footprint, for 15 years.
Software changed that. A software-defined satellite steers its beams, reshapes its coverage, and re-allocates power and bandwidth. In orbit, in hours.
This is not a concept. Eutelsat Quantum is flying. Airbus OneSat is in production. Thales Alenia Space INSPIRE is in delivery.
A satellite that can be reprogrammed can be re-marketed. It holds residual value. And an asset with residual value can be leased.
Ireland turned aircraft leasing into a €350 billion industry. Caelum Space Leasing is building the same platform, for orbit.
One coverage map, fixed before launch. When the customer goes, the value goes with it.
Beams, coverage and power re-planned from the ground, in orbit, in hours.
Re-marketable to a second operator, so it holds residual value a lessor can finance against.
For a new satellite on order. Caelum acquires the spacecraft once it is delivered in orbit and accepted, then leases it back to the operator for the contract term. Launch and early-orbit risk stay with the operator, its manufacturer and their insurers; the operator's capital stays in the business. Suited to operators with a confirmed order and a capacity contract behind it.
Talk to usFor a new satellite the operator needs financed before it ships. Offered once the programme's first in-orbit transactions have closed. Caelum buys the completed satellite at manufacturer acceptance, taking out the operator's pre-delivery funding before launch; launch and in-orbit-test cover is placed with the lessor as loss payee, and lease payments begin at in-orbit acceptance. The operator's build-phase funding is repaid before launch.
Talk to usFor satellites already in orbit and earning. Caelum acquires the in-service spacecraft and leases it back, releasing the capital tied up in the fleet while the operator keeps flying the asset and collecting from its customers. Used to refinance maturing debt or fund the next spacecraft, with an operating track record to underwrite against.
Talk to usSale-leaseback and finance leases for teleports, gateway earth stations and telemetry, tracking and command facilities. Ground assets sit in one jurisdiction, carry conventional security and usually close fastest, which makes them a practical first transaction for an operator new to leasing.
Talk to usHow satellite leasing and sale-leaseback work, structure by structure
GEO fleet operators and single-satellite missions.
Teleport operators, TT&C providers, and gateway earth station operators.
Satellite manufacturers whose customers need financing at delivery.
National space agencies and civil government programmes with commercial space assets.
You sell your existing space asset to a Caelum entity, then immediately lease it back under a long-term lease. You receive upfront capital while retaining full operational control of the asset. At the end of the lease, you typically have a purchase option.
GEO and MEO satellites, ground stations, gateway earth stations, and Telemetry, Tracking & Command facilities. We focus on revenue-generating assets with contracted cash flows — both in-service assets and new-build satellites acquired at in-orbit delivery, so on current transactions neither Caelum nor its funding partners carry launch exposure.
An operator has procured a next-generation GEO communications satellite backed by long-term capacity contracts. Caelum acquires the asset and leases it back to the operator under a finance lease of up to 15 years, releasing the capital tied up in the spacecraft. The operator recycles proceeds into future missions, diversifying its funding and avoiding equity dilution. Ground-station transactions are typically €10–50M.
Illustrative example. Actual terms vary by asset, operator, and contract profile.
Caelum is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Ireland is the global hub for asset leasing — home to the world's largest aircraft lessors and a deep pool of structuring, legal, tax, and regulatory expertise built over decades. As an EU member state, Ireland offers access to the European single market, an extensive double-taxation treaty network spanning over 70 countries, and a well-established common law legal system with courts experienced in asset finance disputes. This infrastructure makes Ireland the natural home for a space asset leasing platform with global ambitions.
