Spanish IT firm Indra has acquired satellite operator Hispasat.

Indra Group has entered into an agreement with Redeia Corporación for the acquisition of 89.68 percent of the share capital of Hispasat for €725 million ($747.6m).

Indra has secured €700 million ($723m) in financing for the deal, with the remaining amount covered with existing cash on balance.

Founded in 1989, Hispasat operates eight commercial satellites and three government satellites. It provides coverage and services across Europe and the Americas.

Redeia (through Red Eléctrica Corporación) paid Abertis €933 million ($964m) for an 88.68 percent stake in Hispasat back in 2019.

Founded in 1992, Indra is a Spanish information technology and defense systems company. The firm is 28 percent owned by the Spanish government.

Reports Indra was looking to buy the satellite firm surfaced last month.

Last year Indra acquired Deimos, a Spanish firm that provides satellite services and technologies with a focus on small satellites, from Elecnor. Indra also set up a new spin-off to serve the space industry.

In other space news:

– Iridium Communications is looking into using small satellites to demonstrate advanced Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) capabilities. Speaking at the Smallsat Symposium recently, CEO Matt Desch said the company may “need to be in the smallsat business for a while, even in just an experimental stage [putting up] a few satellites.”

– SES has secured a €125 million loan from the European Investment Bank’s EIB Global division to fund the rollout of its O3b mPower constellation.

– Serco has acquired Northrop Grumman’s mission training and satellite ground network communications software business (MT&S) for $327 million. The deal is set to close in mid-2025, adding 1,000 employees to Serco.

– Space Capital predicts Boeing and Airbus will sell off their space divisions in 2025 due to “failing to keep up with the pace of change.”

– AscendArc has raised $4 million for its Small GEO satellites. Founded by former Starlink engineer Chris McLain, the company raised $505,000 in a pre-seed round and $3.45 million in seed funding from Seraphim Space, Everywhere Ventures, Portland Seed Fund, Thermo, and Hunter Communications. The company has also been awarded a prestigious $1.8 million Phase II Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) contract, granted by the Air Force’s AFWERX program.

– The Ontario government in Canada briefly canceled and then reinstated a contract with SpaceX’s Starlink in the wake of President Trump imposing tariffs on Canadian imports.

– Starlink is de-orbiting up to five satellites a day. At least 87 re-entered Earth’s atmosphere in January.

– Starlink is providing satellite connectivity to Oracle’s Enterprise Communications Platform (ECP) to enable remote connectivity capabilities. Oracle’s ECP connects devices and real-time communications to Oracle’s cloud services. The platform supports various IoT protocols to connect Edge and mobile devices over public and private communications networks, either through an on-premise Edge gateway appliance or directly through WiFi or 4G/5G.

– US teleport operator US Electrodynamics (USEI) is to deploy a network of optical ground stations. The company is to launch a new service called DiamondLink using optical ground stations from Cailabs that will reportedly offer up to 10Gbps throughput.