Türkiye's state satellite operator, Türksat, and Qatar's Es'hailSat have signed a strategic partnership to build and share a new communications satellite, with Qatar paying for it and Türkiye holding on to its rights over the orbital slot.
The agreement was signed in Doha on Tuesday by Es'hailSat's chief executive, Ali Ahmed Al-Kuwari, and Türksat's general manager, Ahmet Hamdi Atalay. Türkiye's transport and infrastructure minister, Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, announced it in a written statement.
The satellite, Es'hail-3/Türksat-Biruni, will sit at the 50 degrees East orbital slot and carry high-throughput Ka-band capacity of up to 50 gigabits per second. Trade and industry press report that it will be built by Thales Alenia Space as a software-defined satellite, and that the project is worth roughly 295 million euros, described as Es'hailSat's largest single investment.
Qatar finances the project. In return, the two operators will share the satellite's capacity and pool their ground infrastructure, distribution networks and customers. Uraloğlu said the added capacity would strengthen Türkiye's satellite communications and widen its reach across the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, for broadband, aviation and maritime links, and government and corporate data.
The minister was careful on one point: sovereignty. Türkiye's frequency and orbital rights at 50 degrees East will be kept, he said, with no transfer of rights, and the satellite will be registered under Türksat at the International Telecommunication Union. Qatar's money buys a partnership and shared capacity, and leaves Türkiye's claim to the slot where it was.
For Türksat, which has spent recent years enlarging its fleet, the deal brings a new high-capacity satellite without the full bill landing on Ankara. For the Türkiye,Qatar relationship, already tight on defense and finance, it opens a line in space. Uraloğlu called the agreement a new dimension to the two countries' strategic cooperation, and said the partnership with Qatar would give Türksat a much stronger service network across the regions the satellite will cover.