{"id":44655,"date":"2024-11-01T20:01:01","date_gmt":"2024-11-01T12:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/finally-a-sign-of-life-for-europes-sovereign-satellite-internet-constellation\/"},"modified":"2024-11-01T20:01:01","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T12:01:01","slug":"finally-a-sign-of-life-for-europes-sovereign-satellite-internet-constellation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/finally-a-sign-of-life-for-europes-sovereign-satellite-internet-constellation\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally, a sign of life for Europe\u2019s sovereign satellite Internet constellation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The European Commission announced Thursday it plans to sign a contract with the continent\u2019s leading space companies before the end of the year to begin development of a 290-satellite broadband Internet network estimated to cost more than 10 billion euros (about $10.9 billion).<\/p>\n

The press release announcing the contract award to IRIS\u00b2\u2014known as Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite\u2014did not specify the financial details of the agreement, but European media has widely reported the 10 billion euro cost. The commission\u2019s decision follows an evaluation of the best-and-final offer from the SpaceRISE consortium formed by European satellite network operators SES, Eutelsat, and Hispasat.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll do it ourselves<\/h2>\n

The European Commission, the European Union\u2019s executive arm, is managing the IRIS\u00b2 program, which will also receive funding from the European Space Agency and European industry in a public-private partnership. European governments previously expected to provide around 60 percent of the funding for the initiative. Under that plan, European industry would supply roughly 40 percent of the money in a public-private partnership. The specifics of the final cost-sharing arrangement were not available Thursday.<\/p>\n

The European Union announced the IRIS\u00b2 program in 2022, citing a need to create a sovereign, independent satellite broadband constellation so Europe isn\u2019t beholden to foreign networks. Right now, Europe\u2019s two options for obtaining low-latency, high-speed Internet via satellite are SpaceX\u2019s Starlink network or OneWeb\u2019s constellation. Starlink is based in the United States, and while OneWeb is owned by the French operator Eutelsat, it includes contributions from the United Kingdom, which acrimoniously left the EU in 2020.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

Amazon and China are also building satellite broadband megaconstellations (Russia has plans for one, too), so there\u2019s no shortage of capacity for Europe to use. However, EU officials, and many officials in European capitals, believe this capability holds strategic importance and want to control it themselves.<\/p>\n

Starlink is being used on the battlefields of Ukraine, proving the utility of a proliferated constellation of Internet satellites. The aim of IRIS\u00b2 is to provide secure global connectivity for the military forces of EU member states while also retaining the capacity to serve commercial customers.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Artist\u2019s illustration of the multi-orbit architecture for IRIS\u00b2.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n SES<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Europe is not alone in going this route. Earlier this year, the governments of Canada and Quebec agreed to provide $1.9 billion in loans and warrants to Telesat to pay for more than half of that company\u2019s 198-satellite Lightspeed satellite Internet constellation. This will give Canadian military forces and private citizens access to their own domestic broadband capacity.<\/p>\n

The estimated 10 billion-plus euro cost of the IRIS\u00b2 program is nearly double initial projections. European officials also confirmed the sovereign satellite network won\u2019t begin providing services to European government customers until 2030, three years later than the commission\u2019s previous schedule.<\/p>\n

Rising costs and negotiations over how much governments and industry will pay for IRIS\u00b2 have delayed the contract award for months. Earlier this year, press reports indicated the SpaceRISE consortium\u2019s proposal for IRIS\u00b2 carried a total cost of 12 billion euros. It seems the price has been negotiated down, at least by a small percentage, to around 10 billion.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also worth noting that the EU will this year only commit to funding the IRIS\u00b2 initiative through the end 0f 2027, when the commission\u2019s seven-year budget framework expires. It\u2019s almost certain the IRIS\u00b2 program will require more government funding beyond 2027, but the European Commission said it will decide later on additional money, subject to the \u201cavailability of the corresponding appropriations.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April, a senior official in the German government, the EU\u2019s top contributor, called for the IRIS\u00b2 program to be restarted. Robert Habeck, Germany\u2019s economy minister, called the proposed 12 billion euro price \u201cexorbitant\u201d and said the entire project was \u201cill-conceived\u201d in a letter to Thierry Breton, then the EU\u2019s internal market commissioner, according to a report in the Germany newspaper Handelsblatt.<\/em><\/p>\n

Habeck\u2019s protest obviously did not stop the European Commission from awarding the contract to the SpaceRISE consortium. The 12-year agreement will cover the development, deployment, and operation of at least 290 satellites placed at different orbital altitudes, from low-Earth orbit up to medium-Earth orbit several thousand miles above the planet.<\/p>\n

At these higher altitudes, IRIS\u00b2 can cover the globe with fewer satellites than Starlink, OneWeb, or Amazon Kuiper.<\/p>\n

The commission\u2019s press release said the agreement, the largest space contract in EU history, should be signed in December. At that time, \u201clegal and financial commitment from both parties will be taken,\u201d the commission said.<\/p>\n

The SpaceRISE consortium includes numerous European satellite and telecom companies, including spacecraft manufacturers Airbus Defence and Space, Thales Alenia Space, and OHB. Telespazio, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Hisdesat, and Thales SIX are also part of the industry group.<\/p>\n

These companies are typically competitors in the satellite and telecom markets, as are SES, Eutelsat, and Hispasat, which head up the consortium. Getting all the contractors and subcontractors to play nice with one another will be no small feat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The European Commission announced Thursday it plans to sign a contract with the continent\u2019s leading space companies before the end of the year to begin development of a 290-satellite broadband Internet network estimated to cost more than 10 billion euros (about $10.9 billion). The press release announcing the contract award to IRIS\u00b2\u2014known as Infrastructure for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[252,291,6166,9594,6259],"class_list":["post-44655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-broadband","tag-commercial-space","tag-european-union","tag-internet-2","tag-iris2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}