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Tracking the trends shaping space infrastructure, asset finance, and the commercial space economy. New to the structures? Start with satellite leasing and sale-leaseback.
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Satellite design life vs useful life: how a lessor sets the satellite lease term
Eutelsat 139 West A was built for 12 years and served for more than 22. Iridium added five years to the accounting life of its fleet after reviewing its health data. A satellite lease has to be sized to the life the evidence supports, and that evidence changes once the satellite is in orbit.
EU Space Act: what the committee vote means for satellite owners
The European Parliament’s industry committee did not vote on the EU Space Act on 10 November: the political groups reached a deal on 4 November and the vote is now set for 19 November. The start date and the penalty regime are still open. For leased satellites, the lease has to settle who holds the authorisation and who carries the cost.
SpaceX is listed: what its share price tells a satellite financier
SpaceX listed on Nasdaq on 12/06/2026 at US$135 a share, raising about US$86bn. The space sector finally has a daily price. It is a price for a launch, broadband and AI conglomerate, and most satellite assets should not be valued off it.
Will anyone lease a data centre in orbit?
Google put its first AI chips into orbit on 1 October and the US regulator has four low Earth orbit data-centre constellations under review. Will compute in orbit become a leasing market? For the platform, probably, from the early 2030s. For the chips, not this decade.
Space Asset Finance Tracker, Q3 2026: GEO orders, replacement demand and who is financing satellites
Our quarterly count of commercial GEO orders, satellite replacement demand and asset-level space financings. Q3 2026: 14 GEO orders against about 29 replacements due in 2029, and the asset money still coming from export-credit agencies.
Satellite leasing in Ireland: what the aircraft leasing playbook carries over
Irish lessors manage 9,504 of the world’s 14,678 leased aircraft. The tools that built that share carry over to satellites and ground stations almost unchanged. The one that does not is the registry, and the finance lease is written to work without it.
The second customer: what a software-defined satellite is worth when the first one leaves
A satellite’s residual value depends on whether anyone else can use it. Astranis has now moved a GEO satellite to a new slot and a new operator by software upload, and built its next one to do it on purpose. What the second customer costs, and how a lease prices it.
In-orbit delivery explained: what changes when a satellite is handed over in orbit
Under an in-orbit delivery contract the manufacturer buys the launch, flies the spacecraft, tests it in orbit and only then passes title. The clause decides who owns a satellite through the riskiest hour of its life, and it is the cleanest point at which a lessor can take an asset onto its books.
GEO satellite orders reach 14 in 2026: who finances the replacement fleet?
Novaspace counts 14 commercial GEO orders in 2026, against 10 for the whole of 2025. The prime contractors call it fleet replacement rather than growth. Read as a credit rather than as a market signal, that is the most financeable order book the segment has produced in six years.
Build-to-suit gateways: what Telesat's SatPort deal says about ground-segment capital
SatPort will develop, build and host the landing stations for Telesat Lightspeed, while Telesat retains ownership, control and operations of all network elements. The split between hosted facility and owned network element is where the residual sits, and it is the question a sale-leaseback and a finance lease each answer differently.
Caelum at Space Tech Expo Europe, Bremen, 17–19 November 2026
Caelum will be at Space Tech Expo Europe in Bremen on 17 and 18 November. If you build, operate or fund satellites or ground infrastructure and want to talk about sale-leaseback or refinancing, book a slot.
World Space Business Week 2026: satellite refinancing moves up the agenda
Four days in Paris at Novaspace's World Space Business Week, including the Summit for Satellite Financing. The conversations that mattered were about GEO refinancing, who carries risk on an in-orbit delivery, the ground estate, and how much insurance capacity is actually left.
Ground station financing: what a £37m teleport sale and a blocked carve-out reveal
A 44-antenna ground estate changed hands for £37m in August. Seven months earlier, a 70-teleport carve-out was blocked on sovereignty grounds. Set beside a US$1.94bn constellation raise and a US$600m GEO bus award, the two tell you where capital is flowing in space infrastructure, and which layer it is missing.
What the ESA Investor Forum said about Europe's space debt gap
ESA brought roughly 200 investors to Paris on 18 September and named debt, not equity, as Europe’s space financing constraint. That is the lessor’s market.
Satellite life extension and the lease term: what in-orbit servicing changes
As many as half of all GEO communications satellites retire with their subsystems still working, stranded by an empty tank. Life extension now has flight history and, since July, a reusable servicer. For a lessor that turns the end of design life from a write-off date into a term in the lease.
Orbital sustainability update: the underwriters have set a price
In January we argued that end-of-life compliance was becoming a precondition for insurability, and therefore for finance. Seven months on, the space insurance market has put numbers on it, ESA has put numbers on the compliance gap, and a second cost of congestion has surfaced that no disposal plan covers: availability.
The lunar economy is not a market yet, but the contract tenor is arriving
Nearly 330 lunar missions are forecast for 2025–2034, almost all of them government-funded. What has changed for an asset financier is the shape of the contracts: five-plus-five service awards and a fifteen-year procurement horizon are the first cislunar structures that read like offtake rather than grant.
Why a space lessor goes to Farnborough: aviation finance meets satellites
One day at the Farnborough International Airshow, no booked meetings, and the same four questions from every aviation lessor who learned what Caelum does. The answers say a lot about where satellite sale-leaseback stands today.
European Space Forum 2026: what sovereignty means for space asset finance
Two days in Brussels on the EU Space Act, sovereignty and IRIS². Read as a financing agenda rather than a policy one, the Forum described a demand profile: long-dated, public-sector-anchored, and in need of capital structured to match it.
What flexibility really buys you
Software-defined payloads break the single-tenant economics of a satellite. Why the Space INSPIRE and OneSat generation makes sale-leaseback credible in 2026 in a way it was not in 2010, and what the aviation airframe-versus-engines analogue looks like on orbit.
In-orbit servicing: the rise of satellite maintenance
Refuelling, life-extension and robotic inspection are turning fixed-lifespan satellites into maintainable infrastructure. What that does to useful-life, depreciation and end-of-lease assumptions, and why the aviation MRO analogue only holds for high-value GEO assets so far.
The ground segment: why Earth-based space infrastructure matters
Satellites get the headlines; the dishes that talk to them get the contracted revenue. Why the ground segment, now shifting to a Ground Station as a Service model, is the cleaner leasing asset, and where an Irish lessor and EU sovereignty fit.
Satellite spectrum: the most valuable real estate you can't see
Orbital slots and frequency rights are intangible assets that can outweigh the satellite they sit on. How the ITU filing regime, bringing-into-use rules and the C-band precedent shape repossession risk, residual value and what a lessor must diligence in any sale-leaseback.
From aviation to orbit: what aircraft leasing teaches us about space
The €350bn+ global aircraft-leasing market, much of it run from Dublin, is the working blueprint for space asset finance. Where the analogy maps cleanly onto orbit, where it breaks, and why an Irish Section 110 lessor is the natural home for it.
Space sustainability: debris, de-orbiting, and the business case
Orbital-debris rules are tightening from a 25-year guideline to five-year disposal mandates and a 2030 zero-debris target. Why end-of-life compliance is becoming a precondition for insurability, and therefore financeability, and why active debris removal is not yet bankable.