• Satellite launch will validate Meridian’s novel broadband architecture, designed to enable governments and commercial organizations to deploy, own, and control their own sovereign LEO constellations.

Long Beach, Calif., USA, and Vilnius, Lithuania, 2 October 2026 – Meridian Space, a space infrastructure company, and Kongsberg NanoAvionics, a leading satellite bus manufacturer and mission integrator, today announced the successful initial activation of Meridian’s first communications payload in orbit.

Launched aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-18 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base on 1 October, Meridian’s First Customer Link (FCL) mission represents the company’s first deployment of its novel reflectarray antenna technology in space, following five years of development, engineering and qualification.

Kongsberg NanoAvionics has established two-way communications with the spacecraft during the first available ground station pass. The company also verified that all satellite subsystems have powered on and are responsive, including Meridian’s proprietary communications payload. The mission, built on Kongsberg NanoAvionics’ MP42 microsatellite bus, continues the company’s 100% first contact success rate across more than 60 launched customer satellites.

FCL is part of a 122.5 million EUR (140 million USD) contract under which Kongsberg NanoAvionics will build 280 satellites. According to Kongsberg NanoAvionics, both teams are making great strides in developing constellation-optimized satellites to support growing customer interest.

In addition to the Meridian satellite, Kongsberg NanoAvionics supported several other missions on the Transporter-18 launch by supplying communication and complete power systems, including electrical power systems, battery packs, and solar panels for an undisclosed constellation customer.

“Our latest successful mission and collaboration with Meridian Space is a great example of how Kongsberg NanoAvionics helps customers go all the way from demonstrating their technology in orbit to scaling their constellation,” said Atle Wollø, CEO of Kongsberg NanoAvionics. “It took our teams just over a year since kick-off to bring the satellite into orbit. FCL enables our teams to bring operational learnings into the constellation design.

“As the next step for building the constellation, we will utilize a constellation-optimized satellite. Soon, these satellites will also be manufactured in our new serial satellite manufacturing facility, capable of producing hundreds of custom satellites per year. The compact, power-efficient satellite design qualifies for production at scale. It is also optimized for payload volume and reduced deployment costs. We will truly be providing high-capacity, cost-efficient LEO networks customers can own and control.”

Massimiliano Ladovaz, CEO of Meridian Space, said: “Seeing our technology successfully deployed and powered on in orbit is a tremendous achievement for Meridian and our team. But what excites me most is what comes next. We’re building a fundamentally different model for satellite connectivity, one where customers own their networks rather than lease capacity from someone else. FCL brings us one step closer to making that vision a commercial reality.”

At the heart of FCL is Meridian’s lightweight, electronically reconfigurable reflectarray antenna, designed to deliver high-performance communications while significantly reducing satellite mass and power requirements. The technology enables smaller, more efficient satellites, reducing the cost and complexity of establishing dedicated LEO networks and making satellite ownership more accessible to governments and commercial organizations.

The technologies being validated through FCL will underpin two complementary offerings: Meridian Express and Meridian’s next-generation LEO constellation architecture.

Meridian Express is a standardized, rapidly deployable constellation offering designed for commercial and defense applications, particularly in critical environments where secure, dedicated communications infrastructure must be established quickly. Building on the communications technology being validated through FCL, Meridian Express provides customers with a faster, more accessible path to owning and operating dedicated LEO networks, with satellite deliveries expected to begin in 2027.

For customers requiring larger-scale networks, Meridian is developing its baseline constellation architecture, designed to deliver high-capacity broadband connectivity through purpose-built, customer-owned satellite infrastructure. It’s using the same core communications technology being validated through FCL. Additional details about FCL and Meridian’s constellation offer can be found in Meridian Space’s press release.