Space industry in Mexico

AEM - Mexican Space Agency

Mexico City, Mexico government

The Agencia Espacial Mexicana (AEM, Mexican Space Agency) is Mexico's national civil space agency established in 2010 by presidential decree and headquartered in Mexico City. AEM is responsible for coordinating Mexico's national space policy, promoting scientific and technological development related to space, overseeing the use of Mexico's orbital satellite slots and radio frequency spectrum at the ITU, and representing Mexico in international space organizations including the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) and the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC). Mexico has operated geostationary communication satellites since the Morelos series in 1985, followed by the Satélites Mexicanos (Satmex) Solidaridad and Satmex 6/8 commercial GEO telecommunications satellites serving Latin American broadcast and broadband markets. Satmex was privatized and eventually acquired by Eutelsat in 2014, with Mexico's orbital slots — strategically positioned to serve all of Latin America from geostationary arc positions — remaining under Mexican regulatory oversight. AEM works with the Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes (SCT) on spectrum and satellite policy. In Earth observation, AEM manages and promotes the use of satellite remote sensing data for Mexican government agencies — CONAGUA for water resources and flood monitoring, CONAFOR for forest fire and deforestation tracking, SEGOB for border and disaster monitoring, and SEMAR for maritime surveillance. AEM coordinates Mexico's access to Copernicus/Sentinel data through ESA agreements and develops domestic EO processing capabilities. AEM participates in the Latin American Space Agency discussions and bilateral cooperation agreements with NASA, ESA, JAXA, and Agencia Espacial Brasileira (AEB). Mexico's domestic space industry, including satellite equipment manufacturers and remote sensing service providers, participates in AEM's programs through the National Space Technology Development Plan. AEM has worked to establish Mexico as a hub for smallsat research through university programs at UNAM, CINVESTAV, and Tecnológico de Monterrey, whose student teams have flown CubeSats.

ALCE (Agencia Latinoamericana y Caribeña del Espacio — Latin American and Caribbean Space Agency) is a Mexico City-based intergovernmental regional space organization founded in 2021 by seven member states: Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Honduras, and Costa Rica. ALCE represents the region's first formal multilateral space cooperation framework, intended to coordinate satellite development programs, share Earth observation data, pool infrastructure investments, and build collective space capacity rather than duplicate efforts across fragmented national programs. The region has significant but dispersed space activity: Brazil operates its own advanced agency AEB and launches from the Alcântara Launch Center; Argentina's CONAE operates SAOCOM SAR satellites; Mexico has AEM; but most smaller member states lack independent launch or manufacturing capability. ALCE aims to create a cooperative structure analogous to the European Space Agency model — where smaller members benefit from shared investment in larger programs. Key early priorities include regional disaster response satellite data sharing (floods, hurricanes, wildfires affecting the Amazon), remote sensing for environmental monitoring, and human capital development through joint training programs. ALCE complements rather than replaces existing national agencies.

Eutelsat Americas

Mexico City, Mexico commercial

Eutelsat Americas, formerly Satmex, is a leading satellite communications operator focused on the Americas region and operating as part of the larger Eutelsat Group. The company provides high-performance multi-orbit satellite connectivity solutions, leveraging a combined fleet of 34 Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites and the rapidly expanding OneWeb Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation of over 600 satellites. This unique GEO-LEO network enables resilient, secure, and high-throughput communications across land, sea, and air. Eutelsat Americas serves a diverse customer base including broadcasters, governments, enterprises, and the maritime and aviation industries. Their services encompass broadcast and video delivery reaching over 1 billion TV viewers daily and broadcasting over 6,400 channels, as well as tailored connectivity solutions for fixed and mobile enterprise applications, cellular backhaul, and critical infrastructure. They also provide specialized connectivity for government and international agencies, and high-speed solutions for maritime and aviation sectors. Founded in 1997, Eutelsat Americas benefits from over 40 years of experience within the Eutelsat Group, establishing itself as a European space pioneer. The company’s key differentiator lies in its ability to offer both the broad coverage of GEO satellites and the low-latency capabilities of the OneWeb LEO constellation, providing customers with adaptable and reliable connectivity options.

UPAEP AztechSat is the satellite engineering program of the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP), a private university in Puebla, Mexico. An interdisciplinary student and faculty team designed, built and operated AztechSat-1, a 1U CubeSat and Mexico's first domestically built satellite developed through a NASA partnership. It launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9/Dragon CRS-19 resupply mission on 5 December 2019, was carried to the International Space Station, and was deployed into orbit on 19 February 2020. The 1-kilogram technology-demonstration satellite tested inter-satellite communication with the commercial Globalstar constellation to evaluate whether low-cost CubeSats could relay data through an existing satellite-phone network rather than requiring dedicated ground stations. The project was carried out with NASA, Mexico's national science council CONACYT, the state of Puebla's CONCYTEP, Mexico's Ministry of Economy, and partner universities BUAP and UACH, alongside Mexico's national space agency AEM. Following AztechSat-1, the UPAEP team developed Gxiba-1, a follow-on CubeSat intended to monitor Mexico's active volcanoes and track volcanic ash dispersal for aviation and public-safety alerts. The program is funded through university and government science grants rather than commercial revenue and continues to train Mexican engineering students in spacecraft design, integration and operations. It is one of a small number of Latin American university programs with an orbital flight heritage of its own hardware.

AEXA Aerospace, founded in 2017 and based in Mexico City, Mexico, is a space company focused on the development and manufacturing of CubeSats. The company operates within the small satellite sector, concentrating its efforts on designing, building, and potentially integrating these miniaturized spacecraft. While specific product details are currently limited due to a lack of publicly available information, AEXA’s core business centers around providing CubeSat solutions. As a Mexican company specializing in CubeSat technology, AEXA Aerospace positions itself within a growing international market for affordable and accessible space solutions. CubeSats are increasingly utilized for Earth observation, scientific research, technology demonstration, and communications. AEXA’s capabilities likely encompass structural design, payload integration, attitude determination and control systems, and communication subsystems relevant to CubeSat development. Currently, publicly available information regarding specific missions, achievements, or customer contracts is limited. However, as a domestic manufacturer, AEXA is poised to contribute to the development of Mexico’s space capabilities and potentially serve governmental, academic, or commercial clients within the country and potentially internationally. Given the limited information, AEXA’s unique value proposition appears to be its location and focus on developing in-country CubeSat expertise. This allows for potentially faster turnaround times and reduced costs for Mexican entities seeking access to space-based assets, and contributes to the growth of a domestic space ecosystem.

Dereum Labs, founded in 2021 and headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico, is a space technology startup focused on In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) — the extraction and processing of water ice, oxygen, and metals from lunar regolith to support sustained human presence on the Moon. The company represents Mexico's and Latin America's most prominent entry into the lunar economy, bringing regional engineering talent into the global new space sector. The company's core focus is developing lunar mining and processing systems capable of operating in the extreme thermal cycling, hard vacuum, and low-gravity environment of the lunar surface. Water ice — confirmed in permanently shadowed craters near the lunar poles by NASA's LCROSS and LRO missions — is ISRU's most valuable target because it can be electrolyzed into hydrogen and oxygen, providing both life support and rocket propellant without resupply from Earth. Dereum's technology roadmap targets the extraction, purification, and storage of lunar water as a precursor to a self-sustaining lunar propellant economy. Dereum has partnered with Airbus Defence and Space, one of Europe's largest aerospace manufacturers, to co-develop ISRU hardware and benefit from Airbus's experience in spacecraft systems engineering and ESA mission integration. The partnership with Mexico's Agencia Espacial Mexicana (AEM) provides institutional support and positions Dereum as a national champion for Mexico's emerging space sector, which has been expanding state capacity since AEM's founding in 2010. The company has participated in international space accelerators and been recognized within the growing Latin American new space ecosystem alongside Brazilian companies like Sputnik and Visiona. As NASA's Artemis program drives commercial ISRU demand through programs like the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) and future tipping point awards, Dereum is positioning itself as an international supplier capable of contributing ISRU subsystems to the broader Artemis architecture. The company competes in the ISRU space with Masten Space Systems (acquired by Astrobotic), Lunar Resources, and Pioneer Astronautics.