SAN FRANCISCO – Italian space logistics specialist D-Orbit will provide a series of launches aboard its ION Satellite Carrier for Japanese startup ArkEdge Space, under a contract announced July 8 in Japan.
“This is one of the most significant contracts D-Orbit has signed to date,” Matteo Andreas Lorenzoni, D-Orbit Orbital Access Business Unit director, told SpaceNews by email. “It represents real momentum in our Asia-Pacific expansion.”
D-Orbit will send ArkEdge satellites to sun-synchronous orbit in 2027 and 2028. The companies are not disclosing the number of launches.
“What matters most is the cadence. ArkEdge Space needs dependable, recurring access to orbit for its constellation programs,” Lorenzoni said. “That’s what this contract secures.”
The contract also is “an important milestone” for D-Orbit’s campaign to expand its presence in Japan, “a market we see as strategically vital to our growth,” Lorenzoni said. “Japan has one of the fastest-growing space sectors in the world, and ArkEdge Space is one of its leading satellite developers. Working with them anchors ION as the logistics backbone for the country’s small-satellite industry and validates the direction we’ve been building toward.”
Marubeni’s role
Japan’s Marubeni Corp., a D-Orbit investor and commercial partner, played a key role in forging D’Orbit’s launch-services agreement with ArkEdge.
“Marubeni has been instrumental in opening doors across the region,” Lorenzoni said. “Japan isn’t just an important market on its own, it’s the foundation for a broader ambition: becoming a reliable logistics partner for the space sector across all of Asia.”
For Marubeni, “bringing ArkEdge Space and D-Orbit together is exactly the kind of partnership we want to enable, and a clear step toward building a stronger space ecosystem across Japan and the wider APAC region,” Ash Takao, Marubeni Space Division general manager and D-Orbit sales development manager, said in a statement.
D-Orbit aims to become “the logistics backbone for Asia’s small-satellite sector,” Lorenzoni said. “Concretely, that means pairing Japan’s excellence in satellite design and mass production with our European leadership in in-orbit logistics, strengthening the supply chain that gets small satellites to orbit quickly and cost-effectively.”
Constellation deployment
Lorenzoni said the contract also underscores the industry’s evolution from sending satellites into any available orbit to designing constellations that require access to “precise orbital slots.”
As a result, “launch and deployment are moving from being treated as a cost to be minimized, to being an active part of how a constellation actually delivers on its mission,” Lorenzoni said. “That’s a meaningful evolution for the whole sector.”
ArkEdge, founded in 2018, specializes in microsatellite constellations, providing planning and design services, mass production and operations. To date, the Tokyo-based company, has supported constellations for maritime communications, positioning, navigation and timing, Earth observation, lunar infrastructure and deep-space exploration.
D-Orbit’s ION has completed 23 missions. With the most recent ION, launched July 7, the orbital transfer vehicle has deployed 144 satellites and hosted 83 payloads.
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