Why Satellite Control Matters And How UAE Is Building Its Own Systems

Every time a payment clears, a flight lands on schedule, or a flood warning reaches a city before the water does, a satellite made it possible. Most people never notice. That invisibility, he says, is exactly what makes satellites easy to underestimate.

Dr Khalid Al Naqbi has spent 15 years inside the infrastructure nobody sees. As National Expert on Satellite Technology and VP of Product and Engineering at Space42, he joined the sector when Emirati representation was thin, the technology was imported, and space was still largely a conversation between superpowers.

Most people understand satellites as the thing behind maps and weather forecasts. The reality runs considerably deeper. "We use satellites for communications, for positioning, navigation and timing, and for Earth observation," Al Naqbi said. "Whether you use satellites for your car, for your phone, for your communications, these applications all have dual use. You have the defence use and you have the commercial. And all of them are woven into the foundation of how countries operate every single day."

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The consequences of that dependence are rarely discussed until something breaks. The Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) signals underpin aviation routing, financial transaction timestamps, mobile network coordination, and logistics at a scale most people have never considered. "The timestamp and the location services, financial systems, the mobility sector, aviation, communication networks - all of these systems need to know the location of users and the time to coordinate," he told Khaleej Times. "Without the GNSS we are blind."

Modern systems rely on satellites. But many countries rely on satellites they do not control.

What AI has done to satellite infrastructure is transform what it can see and how fast it can act. Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites capture high-resolution imagery in all weather and darkness. The data they produce was once difficult for the human eye to interpret. Not anymore. "Today, with the applications we have and with artificial intelligence, we are able to bring radar images to optical images, an image you can take straight up with your mobile phone," Al Naqbi said. "The computer takes the radar image and the artificial intelligence makes it as if it is an optical image, layering the information in a way that the normal human eye would understand."

The applications that follow are direct. AI can now analyse soil content from orbit, track waterway changes over time, and model urban flood paths before rain falls. "If it rains, we would actually, with AI, anticipate where the water would run in a city, which will help us in preventing damage, allowing for water access, and maybe utilising the water better. AI helped us study things that we cannot normally monitor with the naked eye, things that were simply not reachable before."

Space42's Foresight constellation now comprises five SAR satellites in low Earth orbit, operating at 25-centimetre resolution and placing the UAE among 20 countries worldwide that operate SAR space assets. Abu Dhabi is now home to the region's first commercial SAR satellite manufacturing facility, allowing it design, assemble, and test advanced Earth observation satellites independently for the first time.

The UAE's response to that opening was not simply to participate. It was to own a piece of it. Infrastructure, data centres, manufacturing, knowledge, and the people who carry it, all within the country's borders.

"The ambition has always been to utilise space as a part that cannot be separated or excluded from the UAE's infrastructure and foundation in technology, in providing services, in enhancing people's lives, but the ambition that has been constant is not only growth in technology and business. They have always invested in the human capital, in people's education and growth. And I am maybe one of the biggest people who benefited from this."

That investment is visible with the new generation. When Al Naqbi joined, Emiratis in space could be counted in a small group. Today he watches his younger peers graduate in space technology, AI, and cybersecurity with a sense of direction the field dreamed of before.

"I proudly see my younger brothers and sisters today graduating in those fields with huge eagerness to join," he said. "It is something really to be proud of."

That cross-sectoral thinking was shaped in part by the National Expert Programme, from which Al Naqbi graduated as a representative of the space technology sector. The programme, designed to develop UAE leaders with the ability to connect disciplines and advocate for their fields, built in its graduates something beyond technical knowledge.

"Their goal was to cement our knowledge of our sectors, enhancing our ability to think in a cross-sectoral manner, to tie all the important sectors of the UAE together, to be advocates, to be mentors, to be educators," he said. "They built in us confidence that our careers, our knowledge, our academic paths are all relevant and important for the nation."

The question for countries has gone beyond investing in space tech and into independent sovreign systems. The UAE, Al Naqbi says, made that calculation early: The satellites in orbit, the facility in Abu Dhabi, and the engineers now filling both are the answer it built.

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