This project focuses on software for orbital computing systems.
ORION is a funded European development program for software that coordinates heterogeneous satellites, onboard edge processing and collaborative Earth-observation and communications workflows. Planetek Hellas leads the consortium. The program plans to validate interoperable orbital software infrastructure; its grant does not establish a launched spacecraft, available compute capacity or commercial service. CORDIS reported on October 23, 2026 that ORION continues the key results of the completed ORCHIDE onboard-orchestration program.
Planetek Hellas-led Horizon Europe consortium · Funded development
Scope: Enabling research · A named program validates computing hardware, software or infrastructure. No shared service platform is established.
Figures retain their disclosed units and scope. Launched hardware does not establish demonstrated performance; targets may change. Not disclosed means no figure in the reviewed sources.
PROJECT RELATIONSHIPS
Suppliers & project partners
ALSO Space
Consortium participant
Program organization: Planetek Hellas
Partnership
Unconfirmed scope · Data services · Commercial services
EO/GIS technical services and research outreach inferred from ALSO Space’s official offerings for its ORION consortium participation. Individual ORION workshare is unconfirmed.
This is a disclosed research-consortium role, not a supplier procurement award, flight-hardware delivery or commercial service contract. Buyer and supplier contract value are undisclosed. The project-level EC subsidy must not be attributed to this relationship. Broad product-based scope and categories are inferred from official supplier offerings. Individual ORION work packages, deliveries and operational outcomes remain unconfirmed.
Announced 27 May 2026 · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
Satellite-bus and spacecraft-platform engineering inferred from EnduroSat’s official offerings for its ORION consortium participation. Individual ORION workshare is unconfirmed.
This is a disclosed research-consortium role, not a supplier procurement award, flight-hardware delivery or commercial service contract. Buyer and supplier contract value are undisclosed. The project-level EC subsidy must not be attributed to this relationship. Broad product-based scope and categories are inferred from official supplier offerings. Individual ORION work packages, deliveries and operational outcomes remain unconfirmed.
Announced 27 May 2026 · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
Onboard data and image-processing software and ground-segment software inferred from Planetek Italia’s official offerings for its ORION consortium participation. Individual ORION workshare is unconfirmed.
This is a disclosed research-consortium role, not a supplier procurement award, flight-hardware delivery or commercial service contract. Buyer and supplier contract value are undisclosed. The project-level EC subsidy must not be attributed to this relationship. Broad product-based scope and categories are inferred from official supplier offerings. Individual ORION work packages, deliveries and operational outcomes remain unconfirmed.
Announced 27 May 2026 · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
Satellite-system engineering for Earth observation and satellite communications inferred from Thales Alenia Space’s official offerings for its ORION consortium participation. Individual ORION workshare is unconfirmed.
This is a disclosed research-consortium role, not a supplier procurement award, flight-hardware delivery or commercial service contract. Buyer and supplier contract value are undisclosed. The project-level EC subsidy must not be attributed to this relationship. Broad product-based scope and categories are inferred from official supplier offerings. Individual ORION work packages, deliveries and operational outcomes remain unconfirmed. The existing organization represents the three named country entities without asserting one contracting entity or combining their separate grant allocations.
Announced 27 May 2026 · Evidence checked 27 Sept 2026
Develop and validate the orbital orchestration framework; specific flight assets and demonstration dates are not disclosed.
Manual review 30 Oct 2026. Compared current CORDIS objectives, grant and participant records. Expanded the documented software architecture. Planetek announcement unavailable, but CORDIS supports the accepted research scope and funding. Primary body last observed 23 Oct, 02:04 UTC. Source monitoring: ongoing. Source collection and substantive profile review are separate checks. Plans and dates may change.
Spacecraft identities, number of flight platforms, hosting arrangements, launch providers and demonstration dates are not disclosed.
No measured throughput, power, storage, application capacity, service availability or paid customer utilization is established.
Consortium membership is named, but participant-specific hardware or software work packages, procurement buyers and supplier contract values are not disclosed.
The EC grant is program funding; participant grant allocations are not supplier-order values or evidence that flight hardware has been purchased.
This European ORION program is distinct from NeevCloud/Agnikul Project Orion and from Planetek’s AI-eXpress/AIX flight program. Shared names or organizations do not establish a shared mission.
Project updates
Verified announcements and milestones linked to this project, newest first.
The European Commission reports that ORCHIDE developed a hardware-agnostic onboard processing platform, a unikernel-based application SDK and a simulation environment. The program ended in May 2026, with further development continuing through ORION.
CORDIS records the grant signature and a total EU contribution of €3,660,611.32. This is research-program funding, not a hardware procurement contract or a payment to one supplier.
