Leaf Space’s ground station antenna in the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean. Photo: Leaf Space

Commercial ground station startup Leaf Space is expanding its network and installing three additional ground stations in Sri Lanka, the Azores, and Scotland, the company announced Tuesday. The Sri Lanka station will add equatorial orbit to the company’s offerings, and the station in Northern Scotland adds a desirable high northern latitude location on the 61st parallel.

These ground stations are in the process of being installed and will be activated in the next two to three weeks, a representative for the company said. This brings its Leaf Line Network to 12 ground stations. The company offers Ground Segment as a Service (GSaaS) that allows customers to communicate with their satellites without building their own ground networks. 

“Ownership of our own proprietary network offers customers complete management and flexibility to customize operations and scale quickly. We are continuing to pursue additional expansion to support the daily increases in demand from our customers and are on schedule to activate three more stations in [the third quarter], with the goal of doubling our global network to 19 total this year,” said Jonata Puglia, CEO and co-founder of Leaf Space.

This news comes as Leaf Space prepares to support 14 spacecraft from six customers on the SpaceX Transporter-2 rideshare mission set for June 25, its largest number of customers on a single launch.