A consortium of leading satellite players struck a deal with the European Commission (EC) and European Space Agency (ESA) to develop the IRIS2 constellation under a 12-year contract, expected to launch in 2029.
Around €6 billion of the total €10.6 billion funding will come from the EU, the SpaceRISE industry consortium will fork out €4 billion and the ESA will contribute the remaining sum.
SpaceRISE is comprised of European satellite operators Eutelsat, SES and Hispasat, with additional backing from other industry players including Deutsche Telekom and Orange.
The parties stated the project will see the launch a total of 290 satellites, designed to. provide access to commercial services in remote areas across the continent, while a portion will be reserved for security operation and crisis management. There are also plans to use interlinked satellites in low and medium earth orbits to enable efficient connection, eliminating the need for thousands of satellites.
The IRIS2 (Resilience, Interconnectivity, and Security by Satellite) programme will expand on the European Union’s (EU) existing Copernicus and Galileo satellite constellations, touted to be Europe’s largest Earth-observation system and most precise GPS network, respectively.
As the third flagship EU space initiative, IRIS2 is touted to serve as a “strategic asset” to bolster the region’s sovereignty. Timo Pesonen, director-general for defence, industry and space at the European Commission explained, “IRIS2 underpins our strategic autonomy and defence capacity, promotes our competitiveness, and energises public and private sectors’ cooperation.”
Competition remains rife in the satellite space, with several competitors vying for market share including Elon Musk’s Starlink, Amazon’s Project Kuiper and Apple-backed Globalstar.
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