UAE's First Radar Satellite Sirb-1 Clears Final Design Review, Targets 2028 Launch

The critical design review is the last major checkpoint before flight hardware is built. According to the Space Agency's announcement, carried by the state news agency WAM, the review checked the satellite's design and performance against mission requirements, along with verification plans, interface controls, mission assurance, risk assessments and plans for launch and operations. Sirb-1 passed its preliminary design review in April 2026.

The programme matters for more than one satellite. Radar satellites send out their own signals, so unlike optical satellites they can image the ground at night and through cloud, haze and dust, conditions common in the Gulf. That makes them useful for maritime surveillance, environmental and agricultural monitoring, infrastructure management and disaster response. The agency is also using Sirb to build a domestic radar-satellite industry rather than buying finished spacecraft.

Sirb-1's radar payload will be assembled, integrated and tested at facilities run by Orbitworks and the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) in the UAE. The agency said this would build local intellectual property and a domestic supply chain, and let UAE companies sell radar satellites and data services at home and abroad.

The Space Agency leads and funds the programme. A national consortium formed in 2023 delivers it, with FADA, the space entity of defence and technology group EDGE, as prime contractor alongside TII, Orbitworks and other partners. Engineers from FADA and TII worked with international partners during the review, the agency said, though it did not name them.

"Sirb represents a new approach to delivering national space programmes, one that places UAE companies and national talent at the centre of developing advanced space capabilities," said Salem Butti Al Qubaisi, Director General of the UAE Space Agency. He tied the milestone to the National Space Strategy 2031 and said the agency's aim was a space sector "that can compete globally."

Waleid Al Mesmari, President of Advanced Sensing at EDGE, said the group was building "a fully integrated supply chain for SAR technologies within the UAE" and described the goal as strengthening sovereign control over space systems.

Mohsen Al Awadhi, Director of the Space Missions Department at the Space Agency, said the programme was now entering "its most demanding phase", in which every subsystem has to be built, integrated and tested to flight standards. The agency's engineers and outside experts sat on the review board and will keep overseeing the work, he said. What the teams learn on Sirb-1 will be applied to the other satellites in the Sirb constellation.

The agency has not said how many satellites the full constellation will include, how much the programme costs, or which launch provider will carry Sirb-1. The next milestones are completing the flight hardware and testing the radar payload in the UAE before the 2028 launch window.