PARIS — The number of satellites launched to provide militaries and defense departments with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data from space is expected to increase more than fourfold in the next decade, industry consultancy Novaspace said.
Defense-owned satellites for ISR will drive the future market in the segment, with 2,306 launched into orbit in the 2026-2035 period, from 485 launched in the decade through to 2025, according to data presented by Novaspace Chief Executive Officer Pacôme Révillon at the Space Defense and Security Summit here on Tuesday.
The war in Ukraine has underscored the importance of space-based intelligence on the battlefield, while a brief halt of data sharing by the United States in March 2025 showed the need for governments to have assured access to space-based intel. That in turn has been a boon to commercial providers of ISR satellites, such as Finland’s ICEYE.
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ISR “is obviously a key priority currently for most nations,” Révillon said. ”It’s clearly a world that was already largely transparent, but the direction is as much for a diversification of assets for real-time and persistent intelligence.”
Most of the defense ISR satellites launched in the coming decade will be for constellations rather than individual satellites, according to Novaspace.
Government budgets for space defense are forecast to climb to $121 billion in 2028 from $74 billion last year, according to Novaspace, which said at least 55 countries have space defense budgets. Government budgets for space defense amounted to $53 billion in 2022, based on the consultancy’s data.
Novaspace expects the number of operational systems in space may jump as much as fivefold to between 50,000 and 100,000 in 2036 from 18,000 satellites in 2026, increasing the need to keep track of them all.
More than 400 satellites for space situational awareness, or SSA, will be launched in 2025-2034, according to Novaspace. Global spending on SSA is forecast to amount to $61 billion over the period, with defense programs accounting for the bulk of that, at $52 billion.
Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.
