Caelum Space Leasing Limited applies proven aviation finance structures to the space economy. We provide sale-leaseback facilities and finance leases for satellites and ground stations — creating asset-backed, yield-generating exposure to the fastest-growing asset class of the next decade.
For the first time, satellites and ground infrastructure can be financed the way aircraft are. Four structural changes have arrived together — each one necessary, none of them sufficient on its own.
Cost to deliver mass to low Earth orbit has fallen from roughly $54,500 per kilogram in the Space Shuttle era to about $1,500 on a reusable Falcon 9 — close to a 97% collapse. Starship, in active flight test, promises an order-of-magnitude leap in payload capacity and a further unit-cost reduction. Asset classes that were uneconomic become routine.
Eutelsat Quantum, Airbus OneSat and Thales Alenia Space INSPIRE can be reconfigured in orbit — frequency, beam pattern, coverage area, even the customer. Emerging in-orbit refuelling and life-extension services turn spacecraft from depreciating hardware into maintainable infrastructure. Senior debt amortises inside the lease, so repayment never relies on residual value; Caelum's equity assumes a deliberately low residual, and reconfigurability supports both recovery and that residual. In an event of default, a software-defined platform can be re-leased to a different operator on a different mission — the asset-class equivalent of repossessing an aircraft and placing it with another airline. Recourse first, residual second.
Over 75% of the space economy is now commercially driven — diversified revenue from telecoms, earth observation, IoT and navigation services, exactly the contracted cash flows lenders require. What has been missing is audited disclosure. A SpaceX or Starlink IPO triggers continuous, audited reporting on launch costs, unit economics, fleet performance and offtake margins — the comparable data institutional capital needs to underwrite the asset class at scale. The information threshold is about to be crossed.
The European Union’s €10.6 billion IRIS² programme — €6.5 billion of public funding alongside €4.1 billion of private capital deployed through the SpaceRISE consortium — is building its sovereign multi-orbit constellation, with material adjacent ground-segment investment required to operate it. Combined with national defence telecoms procurement across France, Germany and Italy, this creates a decade of long-dated, investment-grade offtake that did not exist five years ago. In parallel, the proposed EU Space Act and evolving property-rights regimes are building the legal infrastructure for asset registration and cross-border enforcement — mirroring the role the Cape Town Convention played in aviation.
Over 50% of the world’s commercial aircraft fleet is leased. The same capital structures that enabled aviation’s growth — sale-leasebacks, finance leases, and portfolio-level facilities — are now being applied to space infrastructure.
Caelum is the bridge between institutional capital and commercial space operators. We acquire or finance satellites and ground stations, lease them to operators on long-term contracts, and generate predictable, asset-backed cash flows for our capital partners.
Our structures are familiar to any institutional investor or lender with exposure to aviation, infrastructure, or transportation finance. The asset class is new. The financial engineering is not.
Answers to the questions institutional capital asks first. The package is built from aviation-finance fundamentals, adapted for the operational reality of space.
Lease documentation grants the lessor continuous read-access to satellite telemetry — orbit, health, power, payload utilisation, anomaly logs. Underperformance is visible in days, not quarters. The same principle applies to ground-segment assets, with SCADA and uptime data reported under the lease. Early warning, not post-mortem.
On an event of default, the lessor has contractual step-in rights to the command and control chain. Where the operator runs primary TT&C, the lease provides for command transfer to the manufacturer’s operations centre, with command keys held in escrow and the manufacturer standing by as operator. The operator cannot continue to use the asset without the lessor’s cooperation.
In-orbit life, third-party liability and total-loss cover, paid by the lessee, with the security trustee as sole loss payee; launch cover stays with the operator. The core space insurance market — London, Munich, Zurich — is established and writes to standards familiar to aviation lenders; lessor-specific cover is still being developed.
Contracted cash flows from the operator’s end-customers — government agencies, telecoms, enterprises — are assigned to the SPV by way of security and paid through controlled accounts, so on enforcement the receivables follow the asset wherever the service obligation can be transferred.
Operator obligations, maintenance standards, performance thresholds, and event-of-default triggers mirror aircraft lease covenants — minimum revenue coverage, cross-default with material operator debt, technical performance floors, insurance maintenance. Breach gives the lessor early remedies, not just terminal ones.
ITU filings and national licences are held by the operator and are not freely transferable. The lease structures this realistically: the asset is re-deployable to another licensed operator on default, and licence assignment is pre-negotiated with the relevant regulator wherever the jurisdiction permits. For software-defined platforms, mission change post-default is a design feature.
Structured through Irish S.110 and EU-domiciled SPVs with a common-law legal framework, extensive treaty network, and courts experienced in asset-finance disputes. The Berlin Space Protocol is not yet in force (two of the ten required accessions), so Cape Town-style remedies are written into each lease by contract, with a covenant to convert once the Protocol applies.
Every transaction sits in its own Irish S.110 DAC, secured on the asset, the lease and the assigned customer revenue. The transaction types themselves are described under Services.
From €10M. One satellite or ground station, one lease, one SPV. Debt is sized to the lease term and amortises with it; the security package and insurance run to the funder as loss payee. The closest analogue is a single-aircraft mortgage loan, and the documents will look familiar to anyone who has closed one.
To €500M and beyond. A facility across several SPVs and operators for lenders and institutions who want scale rather than deal-by-deal approval. Diversified by operator, orbit and jurisdiction, with asset-level security retained on every spacecraft and ground station in the pool.
Origination, structuring and asset management. We source the transaction, run technical and contract diligence, place the insurance, close the S.110 structure and manage the lease through its life, including telemetry monitoring, covenant reporting and end-of-lease re-deployment. Capital partners fund the asset; Caelum runs it.
We welcome conversations with institutional investors, lenders, family offices, and strategic partners exploring asset-backed exposure to the space economy.