IOD-2 Satellite, Built by Thales Alenia Space for ESA’s Celeste Mission, Lifted Off from New Zealand
Celeste IOD-2 ©Thales Alenia Space
Two satellites, part of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Celeste in orbit demonstration mission, were launched on March 28th at 10:14 pm NZT, atop a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from New Zealand. The two satellites separated from the launcher about an hour later. This marks the beginning of their early operations phase, during which mission control gets them ready for life in orbit. One of them, named IOD-2, was built by Thales Alenia Space, the joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%).
A CubeSat roughly the size of a suitcase and weighing around 30 kilograms, IOD-2 will play a key role in validating the system definition and enable early signal transmission, while derisking and demonstrating the core technologies for future Celeste satellites. The four other IOD satellites under development by Thales Alenia Space will be larger, with twice the mass of IOD-2. They will carry additional payloads to test innovative signals across multiple frequency bands and demonstrate new service capabilities. With additional launches from 2026 onwards to complete the Celeste demonstrator fleet, ESA will be able to assess how a LEO navigation layer can operate alongside Galileo and other MEO navigation systems.
Serving a robust, resilient, and ultra-high-performance navigation system
ESA’s Celeste mission is currently in its in-orbit demonstration phase. This first phase will consist of a constellation of 11 microsatellites in low Earth orbit, built by two European prime contractors, including five satellites provided by Thales Alenia Space. The mission is intended to demonstrate how LEO-PNT (Low Earth Orbit Precise Navigation Timing) can enhance the resilience of current and future medium Earth orbit (MEO) navigation services and significantly improve their performance.
Celeste will demonstrate how a multi-orbit architecture could enable to provide centimeter-level positioning accuracy, enhanced robustness, stronger resistance to jamming and spoofing, and very low latency through ultrafast signal acquisition, ultimately in conjunction with Galileo and other satellite navigation systems.
The Celeste mission will pave the way for new applications, including highly autonomous vehicles by providing continuous coverage in dense urban areas, the Internet of Things (IoT), unmanned aerial and maritime systems (UAS/MUS), and new services in particularly demanding environments that can impair the performance of existing systems — such as urban canyons, dense foliage, polar regions and even indoor spaces — as well as synchronization of terrestrial 5G/6G telecommunications networks.
“I would like to thank the European Space Agency for its renewed confidence, as well as everyone who contributed to this launch, which marks a significant milestone in the history of satellite navigation in Europe,” said Hervé Derrey, President and CEO of Thales Alenia Space. “As demand for precise positioning continues to grow, space-based navigation systems such as Galileo need to be complemented by multifrequency satellites in low Earth orbit. ESA’s Celeste program represents a major advance, paving the way for next-generation applications requiring robustness and integrity, while also creating new opportunities in export markets.”