It’s been a month since we launched ICEYE Portugal. Fusing space tech, Earth Observation, defense and Intel, distributed systems and AI, that’s what we’re building here, and you can be part of it too.
Basics first. ICEYE constellation uses Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites. Radar signals pass straight through any weather, day or night, allowing us to obtain insights of what’s happening on Earth’s surface. We operate the world’s largest SAR constellation with 70+ satellites launched since 2018.
Now, why does this matter?
In Jan-Feb, five Atlantic storms hit Portugal and Spain. We mapped 4,657 km² of flooding through cloud and darkness, delivering intel to local authorities, insurers and utilities while the water was still rising. Optical satellites fail to deliver while the storm is still overhead.
Earlier this year, we worked with three NATO militaries: France, the Netherlands and Denmark. Our ISR Cell, a deployable unit, was embedded with a French Army brigade at ORION 2026. And at Fighter Lion, the Dutch’s army’s largest exercise in 20 years, our ISR Cell got the fastest delivery from image acquisition to the analyst's desk in under 13 mins.
Speed is only half of it. ICEYE ATR (AI-powered automated target recognition) processes a Dwell Fine image in less than 15 seconds and outputs classified objects instead of pixels. Runs in the cloud, on-prem, or inside a deployed ISR Cell.
None of this happens without an integrated and modern software approach.
12 years ago I was obsessed with one problem: how networked vehicles could talk to each other fast enough to make roads safer. The principle was simple. Move massive amounts of data across very different latency needs, and unlock things nobody could build before. I spent nearly a decade bridging that chasm. Around the same time, Rafal Modrzewski and Pekka Laurila were solving a problem no one else had cracked: making radar imaging from space small and affordable enough to put within reach of many, not just a handful of superpowers.
Those two problems turn out to be the same problem. A satellite captures raw data. Turning that into a flood map in minutes takes a full stack: tasking algorithms, processing pipelines, AI models throughout the chain, and infrastructure fast enough to move significant volumes of data from orbit to an analyst's screen. Space, intelligence and AI, in one pipeline.
And it goes beyond satellites in space, flood analysis and ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance).
Portugal already has satellites in orbit, with more on the way. In July, we opened a center of excellence in Lisbon to keep building Portugal's space capabilities and the local ecosystem. Portugal has the talent and the ambition to build things that matter. I have seen it up close my whole career, and now is the time to capitalize on that motion.
We’re here to build what’s next.
If space, deep tech and software engineering rocks your boat, apply via our career page or send me a DM.
