In the summer of 2023 I took a call that changed the course of Exatronic.

On the other end was a group of founders with a clearly defined problem. Eighty per cent of the planet’s surface has no cellular coverage. Whoever solved that gap would open an almost endless set of opportunities. They had most of their funding in place, around a third was still missing, and they wanted to move fast.

The ambition was clear. A proprietary radio system, autonomous and scalable, able to be integrated into third party satellites in low Earth orbit, bringing low bandwidth IoT connectivity to any point on the planet, including the ocean. The round still had to be closed. The right introductions to investment funds eventually appeared and the seed capital was secured shortly afterwards.

What came next was far harder. They are excellent engineers and, beyond that, they built a remarkable team. They knew how to develop the telecoms electronics and software, and they never lost sight of the business, with a revenue path ready to run as soon as the technology proved commercially viable in the target market. What they needed was several hardware iterations over roughly two years to support that development. We industrialised and built every one of them.

None of it was straightforward. Managing component lead times that stretched across months meant taking decisions early, with incomplete information. Qualifying PCB manufacturers to Class 3 meant audits, persistence and a few refusals. Bringing critical suppliers into the project was probably the quietest and most decisive work of all.

There was also a second challenge, placed in our hands right at the start. Within about two years, those boards would need to be qualified for integration into a satellite. They would fly on a launcher, which turned out to be a SpaceX Falcon, withstand the stress of launch and survive in orbit. The PCBs, the components, the solder joints and the quality control all had to move to another level.

Then came the moment to build the PCBAs destined for flight qualification testing. TVAC and vibration. Only by passing those tests would we know that two years of research into demanding manufacturing processes, and into building a new supply chain, had been done properly.

They passed.

The boards were integrated into a satellite in late 2025. The satellite launched. Several very anxious days followed. Then communications between Earth and that piece of electronics built in Aveiro were fully established.

From there the story scaled. We moved beyond telecoms PCBAs for satellites and now build the rest of the onboard electronics as well, from battery pack power management to other control systems.

By the end of 2026 we will have manufactured boards flying on more than one hundred satellites. Some form part of constellations promoted by ESA. Three years ago we knew how to build none of them.

The credit belongs to the Exatronic team. To the engineers who reworked processes until they were right, to the technicians who redid a joint because the microscope and the X ray raised a doubt, to the procurement people who negotiated the impossible, to quality, which never let “almost good” through. And it belongs to everyone who believed in the culture and values of this company long before there was any proof that it would work.

One conclusion stays with me. It is possible to do rather than to announce. It is possible to move forward without depending on funding decided by experts who do not know us. And once you have shown that you can learn and deliver, it is possible to grow inside a sector as demanding as space.

Thank you to the whole team. The next level is already being prepared.