At the call of the European Commission in the space industry should appear satellite constellation, competitive to Starlink from SpaceX. To this end, a partnership was announced between Airbus Defense and Space, Eutelsat, SES and Thales Alenia Space.
It is reported by Space.
Satellite infrastructure IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite), established at the end of 2022, should provide the EU with Internet connection from low Earth orbit.
According to EU estimates, the cost of IRIS² is $6.6 billion. The EU will allocate $2.64 billion. for the implementation of the project. Additional funding is expected from the European Space Agency and private investors. Cconstellation will be commissioned by 2027.
Communication giants Deutsche Telekom, Hispasat, OHB, Orange, Hisdesat and Telespazio also joined the partnership. They believe that the emergence of the megaconstellation will encourage startups in the European space sector to join the coalition.
Megaconstellations are being integrated with Europe’s existing satellite constellations. We are talking about Galileo and dual Earth observation satellites Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B, which are part of the Copernicus system.
Recall that in 2025 it is planned to launch the mission ClearSpace-1. This is a Swiss startup exploring the possibility of eliminating space debris.
