MDA Agrees to Begin Work on Antennas for 66 IRIS² Satellites in Deal Worth More Than $100 Million
Key Facts
MDA Space announced on October 30 an agreement with Thales Alenia Space to begin manufacturing wideband digital antennas and a digital antenna control unit for 66 satellites in the first layer of the IRIS² low Earth orbit constellation. The authorization-to-proceed agreement is worth more than $100 million, according to an MDA statement, while the statement did not disclose a separate final value for the full contract. The company said the agreement will be added to its order backlog in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026. But the final contract covering MDA’s full scope of work remains subject to completion of contracting. The agreement gives the company a defined starting point within a European secure satellite communications program, while the size of its final commitment remains undetermined.
The scope of work includes MDA AURORA wideband digital phased array antennas, along with an antenna control unit, the company said. MDA said the arrays use direct radiation and enable digital beamforming, features that make them a core element of the system for the 66 satellites. It added that the design, production and testing of these systems are carried out at its facility in Montreal. Thales Alenia Space is developing the payloads for the first-layer satellites, while Airbus Defence and Space is supplying their platforms. This places MDA’s components within a supply chain that includes parties responsible for payloads and platforms in the first batch of IRIS² satellites.
The 66 satellites are the Ka-only layer within IRIS²’s low Earth orbit component, part of a broader system that comprises 348 satellites, according to a September 2026 statement by Thales Alenia Space. The low Earth orbit segment consists of 330 satellites, including 66 Ka-only satellites and 264 Ka/Ku satellites, alongside 18 satellites in medium Earth orbit. This configuration shows that MDA’s order relates to the first tranche of low Earth orbit satellites, not the entire constellation. In September, Thales Alenia Space also announced an agreement with Eutelsat to provide government payloads for the 330 low Earth orbit satellites. The company valued that tranche at about €500 million, as part of an expected overall contract for Thales Alenia Space worth more than €3 billion.
The plan targets the launch of the first 66 Layer One satellites in 2029, according to Thales Alenia Space. The company will develop the payloads for this layer, while Airbus Defence and Space will supply the platforms. The second layer comprises 264 low Earth orbit communications satellites with Ka/Ku channels, with launches scheduled to begin from 2030. Thales Alenia Space will be responsible for the government payloads for this layer, while Aerospacelab is developing the platforms. This schedule places MDA’s agreement among work taking place three years before the targeted first launch, with its final commitments to be determined after the full contract is completed.
The program is linked to the development of secure satellite communications services for the European Union, and the president of Thales Alenia Space described IRIS² as a key project for strengthening European sovereignty and space autonomy. He said the system will combine in-orbit data traffic routing, active interference management and end-to-end secure communications. In the first quarter of 2025, the SpaceRISE consortium, which includes telecom operators SES, Eutelsat and Hispasat, awarded Thales Alenia Space a phase activation contract for the initial development and risk reduction of the program’s solutions. The solutions cited included a 5G system, regenerative payloads, active antennas and an onboard satellite processor. This earlier work provides the technical backdrop for a program whose roles are distributed among payload and platform designers and subsystem suppliers.
In trading, MDA shares closed at $29.12 on October 29, according to EL7 data. The stock had closed at $27.61 on October 23, then at $28.36 on October 26. It recorded $29.27 on October 27 and $29.31 on October 28, before closing at $29.12 the following day. These closing prices show the stock’s movement across the five available days around the announcement. The EL7 data provided do not include verified share prices for Thales or Leonardo.