Finally, a sign of life for Europe’s sovereign satellite Internet constellation

The European Commission announced Thursday it plans to sign a contract with the continent's 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 IRIS²—known as Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite—did not specify the financial details of the agreement, but European media has widely reported the 10 billion euro cost. The commission's decision follows an evaluation of the best-and-final offer from the SpaceRISE consortium formed by European satellite network operators SES, Eutelsat, and Hispasat.

We’ll do it ourselves

The European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, is managing the IRIS² 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.

The European Union announced the IRIS² program in 2022, citing a need to create a sovereign, independent satellite broadband constellation so Europe isn't beholden to foreign networks. Right now, Europe's two options for obtaining low-latency, high-speed Internet via satellite are SpaceX's Starlink network or OneWeb's 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.

Amazon and China are also building satellite broadband megaconstellations (Russia has plans for one, too), so there's 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.

Starlink is being used on the battlefields of Ukraine, proving the utility of a proliferated constellation of Internet satellites. The aim of IRIS² is to provide secure global connectivity for the military forces of EU member states while also retaining the capacity to serve commercial customers.

Artist's illustration of the multi-orbit architecture for IRIS².

Credit: SES

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's 198-satellite Lightspeed satellite Internet constellation. This will give Canadian military forces and private citizens access to their own domestic broadband capacity.

The estimated 10 billion-plus euro cost of the IRIS² program is nearly double initial projections. European officials also confirmed the sovereign satellite network won't begin providing services to European government customers until 2030, three years later than the commission's previous schedule.

Rising costs and negotiations over how much governments and industry will pay for IRIS² have delayed the contract award for months. Earlier this year, press reports indicated the SpaceRISE consortium's proposal for IRIS² 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.

It's also worth noting that the EU will this year only commit to funding the IRIS² initiative through the end 0f 2027, when the commission's seven-year budget framework expires. It's almost certain the IRIS² program will require more government funding beyond 2027, but the European Commission said it will decide later on additional money, subject to the "availability of the corresponding appropriations."

In April, a senior official in the German government, the EU's top contributor, called for the IRIS² program to be restarted. Robert Habeck, Germany's economy minister, called the proposed 12 billion euro price "exorbitant" and said the entire project was "ill-conceived" in a letter to Thierry Breton, then the EU's internal market commissioner, according to a report in the Germany newspaper Handelsblatt.

Habeck's 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.

At these higher altitudes, IRIS² can cover the globe with fewer satellites than Starlink, OneWeb, or Amazon Kuiper.

The commission's press release said the agreement, the largest space contract in EU history, should be signed in December. At that time, "legal and financial commitment from both parties will be taken," the commission said.

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.

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.