The Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) is expected to launch the Multispectral Unit for Land Assessment (MULA) satellite in the final quarter of 2026. This will mark a significant milestone in the development of the country’s space program. The advancement of indigenous space capabilities will enable the Philippines to reduce its dependence on foreign satellite data for a broad range of applications, including maritime domain awareness (MDA), moving the country meaningfully towards greater strategic autonomy.
Space-Based Maritime Domain Awareness
Since 2021, the United States has granted the Philippines free access to SeaVision, a web-based maritime situational awareness tool managed by the U.S. Department of Transportation and supported by the U.S. Department of Defense. SeaVision can view and track the position and movement of tens of thousands of vessels worldwide, including those whose location-transmitting devices have been deliberately disabled to evade detection. It achieves this through multiple layers of data drawn from automatic identification system, satellite synthetic aperture radar, maritime safety and security information systems, the visible infrared imaging radiometer suite, coastal radar, electro-optical imagery, and radio frequency analysis. U.S. Combatant Commands or other government agencies procure commercial data and integrate them into the platform. As of April 2026, the platform has more than 4,400 active users across 120 partner countries.
Since 2023, the Philippines has also had access to Canada’s Dark Vessel Detection system (DVD). DVD similarly identifies and tracks vessels that disable their transponders to evade regulatory oversight. It does so by integrating data from synthetic aperture radar satellites alongside space-based radio frequency collection and geo-spectrum analysis. The Canadian government offers this service free of charge to partner countries through a public-private partnership with MDA Space, a Canadian-owned company.
By using both SeaVision and DVD, the Philippines can fill coverage gaps. When a U.S. satellite is not scheduled to pass over the Philippines for a given period, a Canadian satellite may provide coverage in the interim. Together, these satellites provide the Philippines with near-real-time monitoring capability, enhancing its MDA and supporting efforts to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, piracy, smuggling, and other evasive maritime activities.
While these partner-provided systems prove the operational value of space-based MDA, they also carry certain risks. Data from these platforms may not be tailored to the Philippines’ specific needs, and partner countries have the discretion to withdraw or change support per their own strategic priorities. Were that to occur during a period of heightened geopolitical tension, the Philippines could find itself without critical situational awareness. This dependency constrains both operational flexibility and long-term strategic planning.
Building Indigenous Capabilities
The Philippines has taken meaningful steps to develop its own space capabilities, with Japan as a valuable partner in space science, technology, and applications. The Philippines’ first microsatellites—Diwata-1 (2016) and Diwata-2 (2018), each weighing approximately 110 pounds, were jointly developed by the Philippine Department of Science and Technology, the University of the Philippines Diliman, Tohoku University, and Hokkaido University. Both are equipped with a high precision telescope, a spaceborne multispectral imager, and a wide field camera. The satellites were launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
Through a separate partnership with the Kyushu Institute of Technology, the Philippines launched four of its first university-built nanosatellites, each weighing about 2 pounds. Maya-1 was released from the International Space Station in 2018, followed by Maya-2, as well as Maya-3 and Maya-4 in 2021. Each carried slightly different payloads for different missions and served as technology demonstrations. Maya-1 and Maya-2 were deorbited in 2020 and 2022, respectively, while Maya-3 and Maya-4 remain active.
Working with the United Kingdom through knowledge transfer and firsthand training, Filipino engineers and scientists are developing the capacity to build larger and more sophisticated satellites. PhilSA’s MULA project started in December 2020 in partnership with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL). At approximately 287 pounds, MULA is equipped with SSTL’s TrueColour imager and 2 TB of onboard data storage. While its primary mission focuses on land applications, such as forestry and agriculture monitoring, disaster response, and environmental conservation, it is also expected to collect data on the Philippines’s sea areas. The program has, however, experienced delays with expected launch revised from 2023 to 2025 and now 2026.
Despites setbacks, MULA is a significant step toward developing indigenous space capabilities. The knowledge gained through building MULA comes with a license to develop similar satellites independently in the future. This means the Philippines will be positioned to build more sovereign satellites and related technologies tailored to its own national requirements.
Toward Strategic Autonomy
While participation at the upstream level of space capability development advances the local industry, builds high-value technical expertise, and begins to break the cycle of data dependency, downstream capabilities also matter. Raw satellite imagery holds limited value without the trained personnel, analytical tools, and institutional processes needed to transform data into actionable intelligence. Sustained investment in education programs, training facilities, and analytical infrastructure is a necessary precondition for the Philippines to effectively exploit the information its satellites generate and, eventually, to build satellites with on-board edge processing for faster, more efficient intelligence production.
The transition from dependence on partner-provided services to sovereign MDA architecture will require sustained investment, patient cultivation of technical ability, and careful integration of space-based systems with existing maritime security structures. The strategic benefits include assured access to critical intelligence, asserting agency in sovereignty disputes, and the foundation for a broader domestic space industry. As regional maritime disputes intensify and geopolitical alignments shift, the Philippines’ capacity to monitor and defend its maritime domain through its own means will prove increasingly essential to national security and long-term strategic autonomy.
Cover photo: JAXA/NASA
