Officially, her name will be Iris2the acronym for Resilience Infrastructure and Secure Interconnection by Satellite… On Thursday 17 November, the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament agreed to create and finance a sovereign communication constellation by 2024, the expected date of its partial entry into service. “In 2027, the entire constellation will have to be functional”, we want to believe in Brussels. It will compete with the constellations of Starlink (Elon Musk), OneWeb-Eutelsat or even Kuiper, which Jeff Bezos (Amazon) is in the process of deploying.
This leaves very little time for the Commission, and for the commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, the instigator of the project, to launch the calls for tenders, choose the manufacturers and deploy the first satellites. Especially since the Member States of the European Union (EU) have pushed for 30% of the project to be provided by start-ups and SMEs. “It’s a real challenge. assures a connoisseur of the file. We are still trying to figure out how to ensure this objective. »
“For Irises2, we took nine months to obtain an agreement at European level. It’s really a record time “recalled Thierry Breton on Twitter, Thursday, November 17. For Galileo, the European competitor of the American GPS, the EU had negotiated for three years, while its launch experienced many failures. Ultimately, there is no guarantee that Europe will meet its objective this time, as the date is so close.
No question of relying on non-European players
Nevertheless, the Commission’s ambition remains strong. As Starlink has demonstrated, since the outbreak of war in Ukraine on February 24, having a space communication tool is vital in the event of a conflict. For its sovereignty, the EU therefore wishes to be able to rely on its own tools.
“The criteria for selecting manufacturers will be extremely strict”, we remember in Brussels. In particular, there is no question of relying on non-European players. “The future constellation will indeed contribute to the protection of critical infrastructures, surveillance, external actions, crisis management and applications which are essential for the economy, security and defense of the Member States”said Thierry Breton, during his presentation on February 15.
Technically, Iris2 wants to be different from Starlink, OneWeb or Kuiper. The EU does not intend to multiply shoebox-sized satellites in low orbit and clutter the skies. “The idea is to offer an organized constellation with various satellite sizes and in several orbits, low, medium and high”, we detail in Brussels. In addition, the constellation should have a maximum of a few hundred satellites.
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