7 European facilities are building a space industrial base

Europe is becoming a place where you can build a satellite, put it on a rocket and launch it without leaving the continent. That has not been true before.

The facilities

• Isar Aerospace, Andøya, Norway, September 2026. Spectrum reached orbit on 5 September, the first launch to orbit from continental Europe.

• Aerospacelab Megafactory, Charleroi, Belgium, 2026. A €100m, 20,000 square metre plant built to turn out 500 satellites a year.

• Latitude, Reims, France, 2026. 25,000 square metres sized for 50 Zephyr rockets a year, funded through France 2030.

• EnduroSat, Dobroslavtsi, Bulgaria, announced August 2026. A former military airbase, 3 million square metres, being converted into a manufacturing, testing and logistics hub.

• Planet, Berlin, Germany. A new Pelican production line that doubles constellation capacity, on the back of a €240m contract with the German government.

• SaxaVord, Unst, Shetland, announced 8 September 2026. £60m, half public and half private, to finish all 3 launchpads and a second integration hangar.

• Esrange Launch Complex 3C, Kiruna, Sweden, 2028. Firefly’s Alpha is the first orbital launch targeted from the site.

Production lines, not demonstrators

None of these are demonstrators. They are production lines with capacity figures and delivery dates attached.

ESA put €544m behind 3 of the launch companies on that list last month. Isar, Rocket Factory Augsburg and PLD Space, all conditional on reaching orbit by the end of 2027.

The clock

That is the market forming right now. If you are building or financing anything in this space, that is the clock you are being measured against.