Technoport, the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, the University of Luxembourg, the government: one by one, everyone has let go of the Luxembourg subsidiary of China’s Spacety, which has been based in Belval since 2019.

In January 2023, the , a Russia-based technology firm supporting the Wagner Group’s operations during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Despite Spacety’s that it had broken any laws and that it had no clients subject to sanctions, the space startup will have to close down its activities in Luxembourg.

It is difficult to have a precise idea of its financial situation: at the end of 2021, it had more than €900,000 in debts, equivalent to the amount of its share capital, and the latest balance sheet available mentions an interest-free advance of nearly €600,000 from the sole shareholder.

Since it was founded seven years ago, Spacety China has successfully launched 31 satellites, including China’s first commercial SAR satellite Haisea-1 and the country’s first commercial SAR network satellite Chaohu-1, tracking data from commercial radar remote sensing satellites. At the end of December 2023, despite the sanctions imposed at the beginning of the year, the company announced the launch of two new satellites. As far as we know, Spacety launched its 31st satellite on 24 September.

This article was originally published in .