When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, it changed more than the map of Eastern Europe. It changed how governments think about space.
Countries suddenly realized that keeping an eye on the ground from above was not optional anymore.
For most of the early space age, such reconnaissance capability was limited to a handful of major powers with huge budgets. Ukraine showed that smaller states and even commercial operators could use orbiting radar systems to track troop movements and infrastructure changes in near real time, turning space data into a core part of national security planning.
Before the war, spy satellites were mostly the domain of a few superpowers. Now, everyone wants a piece of the sky.
Governments now see space technology as vital to protecting their sovereignty, not just a nice extra for their militaries.
The shift is showing up in the budget numbers. Germany led the way in the 12% rise in European nations' space spending, with most of the increase coming from higher national defense budgets.
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Space is also changing how wars are fought. Modrzewski described it as evolving from a support role into "a primary asset that will determine who is going to win or lose."
The war also demonstrated how commercial radar data could be used for rapid, all-weather assessments in areas where optical satellites struggled to see the ground clearly. That speed and reliability made the case for broader adoption.
ICEYE builds radar-imaging satellites that use synthetic aperture radar, known as SAR. Rather than relying on optical cameras, these spacecraft use radar to see the ground clearly even at night, in heavy cloud cover, or in bad weather.
The Finnish-Polish company has caught the attention of investors. ICEYE secured €450 million in fresh funding during June, and its valuation surpassed €10 billion. The full Series F round, counting secondary share sales, surpassed €1 billion.
That round marked the first investment from the EU's Scaleup Europe Fund, a roughly 5-billion-euro initiative established to address Europe's shortage of growth capital.
Modrzewski said limited access to capital has held European startups back. After long dependence on U.S. security guarantees and years of underfunding, European defense officials are now hurrying to develop their own production capability.
The space race is no longer just about rockets and Mars missions. It is about defense contracts, government budgets, and a growing market for surveillance technology.
For investors, the question is where this money flows next. The growing demand for space-based capabilities is drawing significant investor interest as countries continue to expand their fleets.
Space is becoming a bigger part of how countries protect themselves, and that trend is not slowing down. As defense budgets grow and technology improves, the companies building these eyes in the sky could keep finding new ways to grow. The demand for what they build is only going one direction.
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