Yahsat is the UAE’s state satellite operator, created in 2007 and owned by Mubadala. It has grown into a regional heavyweight with a mixed fleet of Al Yah, Thuraya, and commercial satellites covering the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. It is one of the few operators in the world that straddles both GEO broadband and mobile satellite services.

The GEO side is carried by the Al Yah series. Al Yah 1 launched in 2011, Al Yah 2 in 2012, both built by Airbus and Thales. They provide Ku- and Ka-band capacity across the Middle East and parts of Africa. Al Yah 3, launched in 2018, was supposed to open up Brazil and West Africa but ended up misdelivered by an Ariane 5, leaving coverage compromised. The company has committed to Al Yah 4 and 5, both software-defined GEO satellites due in the late 2020s, with financing secured through export credit and a multibillion-dollar long-term services contract from the UAE government.

The L-band mobile business comes from Thuraya, which Yahsat acquired in 2018. Thuraya was once a key name in satellite phones but had fallen behind competitors. Yahsat has been investing in a refresh, with Thuraya 4-NGS now in orbit, built by Airbus on the Eurostar Neo bus, bringing a new generation of L-band capacity for voice, IoT, and direct-to-device messaging. The plan is to leverage this asset into 3GPP-compliant D2D and IoT services to keep Thuraya relevant.

Financially, Yahsat is stable because of heavy state backing. Most of its future revenues are guaranteed by a long-term government anchor contract worth over $5 billion, essentially making it a sovereign utility. That contract underwrites the cost of the new satellites and ensures Yahsat’s survival regardless of commercial market dynamics.

The limitations are obvious. Yahsat is not competing with Starlink or other global LEO constellations. Its model is GEO plus L-band mobile, tied to government, defense, and regional commercial clients. Expansion beyond the Middle East and Africa has been limited, and Al Yah 3’s problems showed how fragile those bets can be.

In short, Yahsat exists to guarantee sovereign capacity for the UAE and allied markets. It is not disruptive, it is not chasing global dominance, but it is reliable and state-insulated. That makes it less an operator in the commercial sense and more a strategic infrastructure company with satellites.