Space industry in Malaysia

Malaysian Space Agency

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia government

MYSA (Agensi Angkasa Negara / Malaysian Space Agency) is Malaysia's national space agency, established in 2002 and headquartered in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia's most notable space milestone was sending Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor to the International Space Station in October 2007 aboard Soyuz TMA-11 under an agreement linked to Malaysia's purchase of Russian Su-30MKM fighter jets. MYSA oversees Malaysia's Earth observation satellite programs including the RazakSAT (2009, near-equatorial orbit imager) and the newer MEASAT series for communications. The agency coordinates satellite data applications for disaster management, agriculture, and urban planning across Malaysia's peninsular and Borneo territories. MYSA works within ASEAN's emerging space cooperation frameworks and supports the broader national ambition outlined in Malaysia's National Space Policy.

MEASAT

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia commercial

MEASAT (Malaysian East Asia Satellite), headquartered in Kuala Lumpur and founded in 1996, is Malaysia's premier satellite communications company — operating a fleet of geostationary satellites positioned at prime orbital slots that provide television broadcasting, broadband internet, VSAT corporate networks, and government communications services across Southeast Asia, South Asia, East Africa, and the Middle East. MEASAT's satellite fleet operates primarily from 91.5°E orbital position — one of the most commercially valuable GEO orbital slots in Asia, providing line-of-sight coverage spanning from Africa through South Asia, Southeast Asia, and reaching into the Pacific. The company has operated multiple generations of satellites at this position: MEASAT-1 (1996) and MEASAT-2 (1996) were the founding satellites; MEASAT-3 (2006), MEASAT-3a (2009), MEASAT-3b (2014), and MEASAT-3d (planned) provide Ku-band, Ka-band, and C-band transponder capacity for broadcast and broadband applications. MEASAT's primary businesses include direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television broadcasting (as the infrastructure provider for Astro — Malaysia's dominant pay-TV platform, which uses MEASAT satellites to deliver 550+ TV channels and radio stations to subscribers across Malaysia, Brunei, and parts of Indonesia), VSAT broadband for corporate enterprise networks, maritime and aviation connectivity, and government telecommunications services including Malaysia's e-Government data network and rural broadband under the Malaysian government's universal service programs. MEASAT is majority-owned by Khazanah Nasional (Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund) with an ownership structure that reflects Malaysia's strategic interest in maintaining domestic satellite infrastructure. The company competes with regional operators Thaicom, Telkom Indonesia, and Singtel's satellite businesses for Southeast Asian broadcast and broadband transponder contracts, and faces growing competition from Starlink's LEO broadband service for enterprise and maritime connectivity markets.

Orbital Space Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia commercial

Orbital Space Malaysia is a Kuala Lumpur-based space startup founded in 2018 developing CubeSat satellites and space education programs, recognized for launching Malaysia's first commercially developed CubeSat — demonstrating that private Malaysian enterprises, not just government agencies, could independently develop and deploy operational satellites. The company builds 3U and 6U CubeSat platforms for Earth observation, technology demonstration, and IoT connectivity applications, targeting the growing demand from Southeast Asian universities, government agencies, and commercial operators who need locally built satellite capabilities. Orbital Space Malaysia also runs a Space Education Program providing hands-on satellite development training for Malaysian university students and engineers — a critical pipeline given the shortage of experienced satellite engineers in Malaysia's nascent commercial space sector. Malaysia has ambitious space aspirations anchored by MEASAT's commercial GEO telecommunications satellite heritage and the Malaysia Space Agency's (MySA) national space program, but lacks the indigenous manufacturing base of more developed space nations. Orbital Space Malaysia fills a gap by providing in-country CubeSat development services rather than requiring Malaysian institutions to send their satellite development work overseas to European or American integrators. The company participates in Malaysia's push to develop a domestic space industrial base aligned with the government's Twelfth Malaysia Plan (RMK-12) target to grow the space economy. The Kuala Lumpur location provides access to Malaysia's engineering university ecosystem including UTM, UPM, and UiTM, and to the broader ASEAN connectivity funding programs that create demand for low-cost satellite data services across the archipelago.

SpaceIn

Penang, Malaysia commercial

SpaceIn Sdn Bhd, a technology spin-off from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in Penang, is Malaysia's pioneering PocketQube satellite developer and IoT connectivity services company — building the country's smallest satellites and establishing Malaysia as a participant in the ultra-miniature nanosatellite sector that is pushing the boundaries of how small a functional orbital spacecraft can be. PocketQube is a satellite form factor standard defining cubes of 5 cm × 5 cm × 5 cm per unit (1P), developed as an even smaller and cheaper alternative to the 10×10×10 cm CubeSat standard. A 1P PocketQube has just 125 cm³ of volume — less than 1/8 the volume of a 1U CubeSat — enabling extreme miniaturization of spacecraft components and dramatically lower mass, manufacturing cost, and launch price. SpaceIn's SpaceANT-D is a 1P PocketQube (5×5×5 cm) providing technology demonstration and IoT connectivity services from orbit. SpaceIn's near-space platform services extend beyond orbital satellites to high-altitude balloon platforms that can carry payloads to the stratosphere (30-40 km altitude) for atmospheric research, Earth imaging, and technology testing at a fraction of orbital launch costs. This near-space offering allows customers to test satellite payloads and sensors in space-like conditions (vacuum, extreme temperatures, high-energy radiation) before committing to orbital missions. Malaysia's space sector has been growing through government satellite programs (RazakSAT, TerraXpace's SAR satellite) and university research (UTM, USM space programs). SpaceIn represents the university spinout pathway to commercial space business, translating academic satellite development expertise into commercial IoT and remote sensing services. The company competes in the nano/femto-satellite segment with KiboCUBE (UNOOSA program), GomSpace, and other ultra-small satellite developers.

TerraXpace, a Malaysian space technology company, developed TerraX-1 — Malaysia's first locally-designed and manufactured Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite, successfully launched in 2025 — marking a significant milestone for Southeast Asia's space industry as the first SAR satellite built domestically in Malaysia rather than procured from a foreign prime contractor. TerraX-1 is a small SAR satellite carrying an X-band radar payload that images Earth's surface using microwave radar pulses that penetrate cloud cover and operate independently of solar illumination, enabling all-weather day-and-night Earth observation critical in Southeast Asia's monsoon climate where optical satellites are frequently blocked by persistent cloud cover during cyclone seasons, monsoon periods, and tropical convection events. This all-weather capability is essential for the region's disaster monitoring, maritime surveillance, and agricultural monitoring applications that require imagery precisely when cloud-induced optical satellite outages would otherwise create data gaps. Key applications for TerraX-1's SAR data in the Southeast Asian context include: maritime domain awareness monitoring vessel traffic through the Strait of Malacca (one of the world's most important shipping lanes), illegal fishing detection in Malaysia's Exclusive Economic Zone, flood extent mapping during monsoon flooding events (Malaysia and surrounding countries experience catastrophic floods requiring rapid damage assessment), plantation health monitoring for oil palm (Malaysia is the world's second-largest palm oil producer), and deforestation detection in Borneo's remaining rainforest. TerraXpace represents Malaysia's strategic investment in domestic satellite manufacturing capability, reducing dependence on foreign procurement for future EO missions. The company's success in building and launching a SAR satellite positions Malaysia alongside Singapore and Indonesia as Southeast Asian nations developing indigenous space industrial capabilities beyond purely government-operated programs.

Angkasa-X is a Kuala Lumpur-based Malaysian commercial space company founded in 2020 with the ambitious goal of becoming Southeast Asia's first indigenous small satellite launch provider, positioning Malaysia and ASEAN at the frontier of the new commercial space economy. The company is developing a family of small launch vehicles targeting the sub-500 kg to LEO market, designed specifically for the growing demand from Southeast Asian satellite operators who currently depend entirely on foreign launch services (SpaceX Transporter, ISRO PSLV, and Rocket Lab) for access to orbit. Angkasa-X participates in the ASEANSAT collaborative project, a regional initiative to develop shared satellite infrastructure among ASEAN member states (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) for Earth observation, disaster monitoring, and maritime domain awareness in one of the world's most disaster-prone regions. The company is led by aerospace engineers and has received early-stage support from Malaysian government innovation funds and the Malaysia Space Agency (MySA), which oversees Malaysia's national space strategy following the country's long history with the MEASAT GEO telecommunications satellite series. Malaysia's equatorial location near 3°N latitude provides a significant launch performance advantage for equatorial LEO and GEO transfer orbits compared to launches from higher latitudes, reducing propellant requirements substantially. Angkasa-X is also developing small satellite platforms for Earth observation applications targeting palm oil plantation monitoring, coastal erosion tracking, and maritime vessel tracking across Southeast Asia's 5 million square kilometers of archipelagic waters.