# UAE's space industry expands with more private satellites — retained record

> Retained news record from news:semafor.

Canonical: https://highsignal.app/data/records/03146dce4ed1fecd

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source: [news](https://highsignal.app/data/news) (news:semafor)  published 2026-08-21 15:09 ingested 2026-08-22 06:36

[original source ↗](https://www.semafor.com/article/08/21/2026/uaes-space-industry-expands-with-more-private-satellites)

## retained text



```
Abu Dhabi’s Orbitworks sold capacity on its planned Altair satellite constellation to French space agency CNES, securing a useful endorsement for the UAE’s most significant commercial space venture to date.
The first of Orbitworks’ AI-enabled, Earth observation satellites was flown to Los Angeles this month onboard an Emirates plane, ahead of a planned launch in October. Nine others will follow over the next year; all are being built at the Orbitworks facility in Abu Dhabi.
The sale is part of the evolution of the UAE space industry, which has previously made headlines with government-funded missions to send the first Arab astronaut to the International Space Station, and the Hope probe to orbit Mars.
```



document fetched 2026-08-22 06:36 · canonical https://semafor.com/article/08/21/2026/uaes-space-industry-expands-with-more-private-satellites