Hisdesat's triple coup in NATO, the EU and the Spanish Government

1. Spain and five other nations provide communications to the entire NATO
2. Included in the Moncloa's 2% plan

The strategic government services company Hisdesat, the company that has gradually become the jewel in the crown of Hispasat, Spain's leading commercial satellite communications operator, has just seen its immediate expectations fulfilled and has a clear business horizon until 2035 and even beyond.

The reasons for the enormous satisfaction felt at Hisdesat's headquarters on Madrid's Paseo de la Castellana and, of course, the reasons for the satisfaction evident on the face of its CEO and head of the company, Miguel Ángel García Primo, can be summarised in three events that have taken place this April.

With the start of spring, a series of ‘lucky breaks’ have secured the company's short-, medium- and long-term future in the gigantic, confusing and chaotic pool table that the global geostrategic scenario has become.  

Firstly, Hisdesat has seen how the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) confirmed on 4 April that the two new Spainsat NG platforms – the first in orbit since 30 January and the second scheduled for the second quarter of the year – have been given the official green light to represent Spain in the small multinational consortium NSS6G of the NCIA, a NATO organisation headed since June 2021 by Belgian General Ludwig Decamps.  

This exclusive NSS6G consortium is designed to meet the Alliance's growing demand for strategic links until the end of 2034. The transatlantic organisation does not have its own satellites and meets its communications needs through a multinational framework agreement with the few countries that offer it platforms protected against the effects of high-altitude nuclear explosions, on-board processing capacity, encrypted transmissions and flexible frequency bands. 

Spain and five other nations provide communications to the entire NATO

To date, four nations have covered the Alliance's services with their broadband satellite networks. These are the United States, with its extensive WGS constellation; France, with its Syracuse satellites; Italy with its Sicral satellites; and the United Kingdom with its Skynet platforms.

However, needs are growing, and Spain has officially joined the select NSS6G club, although in practical terms this is expected to take place in ‘early August’. This will be when the new Spanish satellite Spainsat NG-1 reaches its correct place in space ‘in the geostationary orbital position of 29º East, at an altitude of almost 36,000 kilometres above the Earth, replacing Xtar-Eur’, confirms a senior company executive. 

Alongside Spain, Luxembourg has also joined the consortium through its GovSat-1 satellite, which has been in orbit since 31 January 2018. This is the only device owned by the company, also called GovSat, a public-private partnership between the Grand Duchy and SES, the Luxembourg-based satellite communications operator. In total, around a dozen satellites are accredited to provide secure transmission services to NATO. 

Hisdesat's second coup came just eleven days after the Alliance's announcement, finally giving rise to the company's new major strategic commitment. As Atalayar anticipated a few days earlier, on 15 April, the Council of Ministers authorised the Department of Industry to grant Hisdesat a multi-year loan totalling 1 billion euros to develop Paz 2, two new spy satellites incorporating the latest synthetic aperture radar technology.

The Paz 2 pair is designed to replace its older sibling, Paz, which was launched into space on 22 February 2018, at the end of this decade or the beginning of the next. The several years of delay by the Sánchez government in giving its approval have given way to haste, and the Council of Ministers itself is now saying that it is important to start the design and development of Paz 2... ‘as soon as possible’. The Hisdesat team is finalising the details of the contract with Airbus Space Systems Spain so that the Getafe factory can take over production.

Included in the Moncloa's 2% plan

The new devices meet the operational requirements defined by the Defence Staff, whose main purpose is to provide intelligence information to the Spanish Armed Forces. Thus, the third stroke of luck has been their inclusion in the Industrial and Technological Plan for Security and Defence that President Pedro Sánchez himself made public on 22 April to comply with the 2% requirement demanded by Brussels.

The two satellites are included in the chapter of the Industrial and Technological Plan dedicated to new telecommunications and cybersecurity technologies, which envisages a special modernisation programme called ‘Earth Observation Space System (SEOT) PAZ II’ and which it specifies as a ‘set of two new Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technology satellites’, to which 200 million euros will be allocated by 2025.

According to the head of government, the aforementioned plan was sent to Brussels the following day ‘so that its technical and budgetary foundations can be evaluated by the European Union and NATO’. With a dual-use component for commercial purposes, Paz 2 is expected to pass the Alliance analysts' scrutiny without any problems.

The authorisation granted by the Council of Ministers on 15 April is to finance the ‘Paz 2’ programme. However, the Industrial and Technological Plan for Defence that President Sánchez has already sent to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and to the Secretary General of the Alliance, Mark Rutte, refers to ‘Paz II’. It is assumed that Paz II and Paz 2 refer to the same satellites, but this oversight denotes a lack of rigour on the part of the drafters of both official documents

The three twists were foreshadowed by Indra's purchase of Hispasat – and, indirectly, Hisdesat – from the parent company of the two aforementioned companies, Redeia, which is the commercial name of Red Eléctrica de España, a business group controlled by the Spanish Industrial Holdings Company, SEPI.

The 725 million euro acquisition agreement was reached in early February and is expected to be finalised ‘by the fourth quarter of 2025’, according to Indra. The company chaired by Ángel Escribano has acquired 89.68% of Hispasat, which represents 43% of Hisdesat's share capital. As Indra already owns 7% of Hisdesat, the Spanish technology company will control 50% of the satellite operator's capital and become its main shareholder.