Luxembourg-based Hydrosat has launched Nyktòs, a high-resolution mid-wave infrared (MWIR) satellite programme that will give NATO and allied governments day-and-night thermal imagery they can task themselves for tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).
The company announced the programme in Luxembourg on November 2, and it will be developed from new European facilities with a growing network of regional suppliers.
The launch comes five weeks after EU governments formally identified a joint SPACE defence project that includes intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance among its core capabilities, with indicative spending of €24 billion by 2034.
How Nyktòs works with Hydrosat’s Osiris satellites
Nyktòs is designed to complement Osiris, the longwave infrared (LWIR) constellation that Hydrosat unveiled in Paris in September, with each satellite capturing 25-metre thermal imagery across a 160-340 kilometre swath.
Osiris is built to monitor large areas, while Nyktòs will focus on smaller heat sources in much finer detail. Both sense heat that objects emit, so they keep working after dark.
Hydrosat describes the combination as a tipping-and-cueing system: Osiris spots unusual temperature changes across a region and cues Nyktòs to take a closer look. Combined with historical, optical and radar data, the company says this can help governments find significant activity, investigate it and track how it changes over time.
Emergency services and infrastructure operators could use the same process to decide where to send people first, for example.
“Finding and understanding activity on the ground requires both monitoring of wider areas and the ability to examine specific locations in detail,” said Scott Soenen, Hydrosat’s CTO.
“Broad-area thermal monitoring provides the context to identify changes, while high-resolution MWIR allows us to investigate those changes more closely.”
For sovereign customers, Hydrosat says it can adjust how much of a mission is national and how much relies on its commercial fleet.
A dedicated mission could come with its own terms for tasking, control, security and data access, and commercial satellites would then add more observation opportunities and wider coverage as events develop.
A bigger European footprint
Alongside Nyktòs, Hydrosat will open additional facilities in Europe, widening its regional supply chain to support technology development, spacecraft integration, mission operations, data processing and thermal analytics.
The company said the new offices will bring it closer to government customers, industry partners and the region’s wider space and security sector. It added that they will help build the local expertise needed to sustain sovereign thermal capabilities over the long term.
Hydrosat’s reason for doing this work inside Europe is what governments now ask of space-based intelligence. According to the company, defence and security agencies want reliable access to information, control over how data is collected and tasked, protection for sensitive material and capabilities that stay available during a crisis. Basing development, integration and operations in the region is meant to meet those demands, while also allowing Hydrosat to tailor missions to individual national requirements while still offering extra coverage from its commercial constellations.
“Europe’s investment in space is an investment in its ability to protect its interests and make independent decisions. We are committed to helping turn that ambition into capability,” said Pieter Fossel, Hydrosat’s co-founder and CEO.
“By expanding our presence and investing in technology development here in Europe, we are strengthening the industrial foundation for sovereign space missions, and for Europe to act with confidence alongside its allies.”
The company also noted that the expansion would deepen its role in Europe’s growing sovereign space market, expecting to support national programmes as well as the wider observation networks that Europe and its allies are building. It follows a €51 million Series B round closed in January.
Europe’s push for thermal eyes in orbit
Hydrosat’s announcement is part of a wider surge in European space spending. In November 2025, European Space Agency (ESA) member states raised the agency’s budget to €22.1 billion over three years and gave it an explicit mandate for security and defence work.
The European Commission has also proposed €131 billion for defence and space from 2028, five times what the current budget allocates to those areas, with Germany alone planning to spend €35 billion on space-related defence projects by 2030.
Thermal imaging has become one of the most competitive parts of that market. Munich-based constellr raised €37 million to expand its thermal imaging satellites; British company SatVu launched its HotSat-3 thermal satellite on October 2.
Luxembourg is building its own defence space capabilities as well. In January, 57 of 60 MPs voted to finance GovSat-2, a government and defence communications satellite. The country also launched the first satellite of its LUXEOSys Earth observation system in August 2025, meant to supply the EU, NATO, the UN and other allies.
Featured image: Getty Images via Unsplash+
Disclosure: This article mentions a client of an Espacio portfolio company.
