Filtronic lands a $68m SpaceX order for satellite amplifiers
The County Durham RF specialist has booked its largest SpaceX order yet, a follow-on deal worth $68.1m that it expects to fulfil during FY2028.
Filtronic has landed another SpaceX order, and this one is bigger than the last. The County Durham radio-frequency specialist confirmed a $68.1m order from SpaceX for E-band gallium nitride solid-state power amplifiers, a follow-on to the $62.5m deal it announced in August 2025.
What's actually going on
The order is for Filtronic's Cerus family of E-band GaN solid-state power amplifiers, the hardware that sits behind high-throughput satellite links. According to the company announcement, published on 1 October, the order is expected to be "materially fulfilled during FY2028", which the board says underpins its expectations for that year and gives it stronger visibility over future revenue.
Filtronic describes the deal as a follow-on order that "further strengthens Filtronic's strategic partnership with SpaceX". Chief executive Nat Edington called it "another significant milestone", adding that the order "provides extended order visibility and coverage over the next couple of years" and "significant revenue visibility into FY2028 and beyond".
The company did not disclose terms beyond the headline value, and SpaceX has not commented publicly on the order.
Why you should care
The interesting part is not the size of the cheque, it is what the amplifier is made of. Filtronic builds these parts on gallium nitride rather than the older gallium arsenide, and GaN is the reason the order exists at all. It handles higher output power, runs more efficiently and manages heat better than GaAs, which matters enormously when you are pushing RF signals to and from satellites in low Earth orbit.
That technology shift is why a company of Filtronic's size keeps winning work from the largest satellite operator on the planet. It is also why this is a genuinely good UK technology story rather than just another contract announcement: the specialist engineering here happens in Sedgefield, in the north-east of England, and it is being bought because nobody else does it quite as well.
For investors, the significance is the visibility. Filtronic is an AIM-listed company, and a follow-on order of this size taking it into FY2028 is the sort of thing that steadies a share price. For everyone else, it is a reminder that the satellite internet boom is not just rockets and dishes. Somebody has to build the amplifiers, and increasingly that somebody is British.
Our opinion
Two orders from SpaceX in roughly 14 months, with the second one larger than the first, is a much better signal than a single big win. Repeat business from a customer with SpaceX's engineering standards means the product is doing what it claims on orbit, not just on a test bench.
The caution is that Filtronic has now staked a serious chunk of its forward visibility on one customer. That is excellent while the relationship holds and the constellation build-out continues, and considerably less excellent if either slows. A company announcing orders in dollars while reporting in pounds should also be watched for the currency drag when sterling moves the wrong way.
Still, GaN is the right technology at the right moment, and being the supplier that space companies call when they need more power out of a smaller box is a good place to be standing.