IRIS2: everything you need to know about this new European constellation

After Galileo and Coper­ni­cus, Europe will deploy the IRIS² (Infra­struc­ture for Resi­li­ence, Inter­con­nectiv­ity and Secur­ity by Satel­lite) con­stel­la­tion of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions satel­lites in 2030. Jean-Pierre Diris, inter­de­part­ment­al coordin­at­or for IRIS², explains the issues at stake in this new pro­ject sup­por­ted by the European Com­mis­sion and the under­ly­ing tech­no­lo­gic­al challenges.

Jean-Pierre Diris. The digit­al trans­form­a­tion of our soci­et­ies is lead­ing to an explo­sion in demand for con­nectiv­ity. Until recently, space-based con­nectiv­ity was less effi­cient and more expens­ive than ter­restri­al tech­no­lo­gies. But advances in elec­tron­ic mini­atur­isa­tion, the intro­duc­tion of reusable launch­ers and the deploy­ment of indus­tri­al capa­city to mass-pro­duce satel­lites have made pos­sible the advent of ‘mega con­stel­la­tions’, which are set to revolu­tion­ise the mar­ket and usage patterns.

To avoid depend­ing on non-European play­ers for its stra­tegic, mil­it­ary and gov­ern­ment­al needs, Europe has decided to devel­op its own con­stel­la­tion. IRIS² will provide secure con­nectiv­ity for our embassies, our armed forces in theatres of oper­a­tion and our gov­ern­ment ser­vices in the event of envir­on­ment­al crises, even when ter­restri­al tech­no­lo­gies are absent or unavail­able. At the same time, it will provide a com­pet­it­ive com­mer­cial service.

IRIS² will have 264 satel­lites in low Earth orbit (LEO), at an alti­tude of 1,200 km, and 18 satel­lites in medi­um Earth orbit (MEO), at an alti­tude of 8,000 km. By way of com­par­is­on, Starlink already has 7,000 satel­lites and plans to deploy a total of 42,000 in low Earth orbit. Amazon is about to launch the first satel­lites of the Kuiper con­stel­la­tion, which is expec­ted to have 3,200 satel­lites. The Chinese gov­ern­ment has also begun deploy­ing Guow­ang (‘nation­al net­work’ in Chinese) at the end of 2024, which will com­prise 13,000 satel­lites, and oth­er pro­jects of this scale, backed by private interests, are being developed in the coun­try. So, IRIS² is not a mega-con­stel­la­tion, and unlike Starlink or Kuiper, its pur­pose is not purely commercial.

The European Com­mis­sion launched IRIS² in 2022 and its reg­u­la­tion was val­id­ated at European level in March 2023. On 16^th Decem­ber last year, a decis­ive step was taken with the sign­ing of a 12-year con­ces­sion con­tract with the SpaceR­ISE indus­tri­al con­sor­ti­um formed by three oper­at­ors: Eutelsat, SES and Spain’s His­pasat. Between 2023 and 2024, the dis­cus­sions between the 27 Mem­ber States were indeed intense, and Ger­many expressed some mis­giv­ings. But I think I can say that we have turned the page on these difficulties.

The con­ces­sion con­tract is worth €10.6bn, with 60% com­ing from European pub­lic funds and the remain­ing 40% from the three mem­bers of the con­sor­ti­um. This pub­lic-private part­ner­ship struc­ture is a first in the European space sec­tor for a pro­ject of this scale. Of course, this means that the com­mer­cial ser­vices delivered by IRIS² must be prof­it­able, and there­fore highly com­pet­it­ive, which Europe knows it can con­trol. And while Thalès and Air­bus are no longer part of SpaceR­ISE, they remain priv­ileged partners.

The cent­ral issue is secur­ity, which con­cerns both the com­mand and con­trol of the satel­lites and all the com­mu­nic­a­tions car­ried by the net­work. This will be based in par­tic­u­lar on inter-satel­lite com­mu­nic­a­tion using high-speed laser trans­mis­sion. Data will be sent to just five points of pres­ence on the ground, all loc­ated in Europe. This con­fig­ur­a­tion will avoid depend­ence on an uncon­trolled ter­restri­al infrastructure.

IRIS² will also enable a tech­no­lo­gic­al leap for­ward in terms of elec­tron­ic mini­atur­isa­tion. Oper­at­ors have opted to work to 5G stand­ards in order to provide a seam­less com­mer­cial offer­ing between ter­restri­al and space sys­tems. The satel­lites, which are highly digit­ised, will also be fully repro­gram­mable, par­tic­u­larly in the event of a switch to 6G. These fea­tures will be based on highly integ­rated digit­al tech­no­lo­gies, with etch­ings typ­ic­ally reach­ing 7nm, some­thing that has not yet been done in Europe.

In fact, Europe is very well placed in this com­pet­i­tion for fre­quency bands. IRIS² will extend two exist­ing con­stel­la­tions: OneWeb, ori­gin­ally an Amer­ic­an net­work, was acquired by France’s Eutelsat in Septem­ber 2023, and O3b mPOWER, oper­ated by Luxembourg’s SES. For its com­mer­cial applic­a­tions, it will there­fore bene­fit from their reserved fre­quency rights, which have an excel­lent level of pri­or­ity (OneWeb, in par­tic­u­lar, has pri­or­ity over Starlink in low-Earth orbit). Gov­ern­ment applic­a­tions, on the oth­er hand, rely on a spe­cif­ic fre­quency range, the mil­it­ary Ka-band: France and Europe registered fre­quency rights for this range very early on, and as a res­ult have quite remark­able pri­or­ity rights.

The con­sor­ti­um plans to devel­op non-emissive satel­lites so as not to dis­rupt astro­nom­ic­al obser­va­tions. The pro­duc­tion of debris in orbit comes essen­tially from acci­dent­al col­li­sions, which must be avoided at all costs because the pres­ence of debris leads to expo­nen­tial degrad­a­tion of objects in orbit. This requires satel­lite com­mand and con­trol, and Europe has a great deal of exper­i­ence in this area. On the oth­er hand, there is some con­cern about the level of con­trol exer­cised by the new play­ers. We know, for example, that SpaceX very often man­oeuvres its satel­lites to avoid col­li­sions, and that more than 400 of them are cur­rently out of order, which is quite worrying.

Nat­ur­ally, we are closely mon­it­or­ing research on this sub­ject, but we have to admit that there is still no con­sol­id­ated view of the vari­ous risks caused by the dis­in­teg­ra­tion of a large num­ber of satel­lites in the atmo­sphere. In any case, it should be remembered that Europe, with IRIS², has opted for a very sus­tain­able mod­el: few­er than 300 objects, each with a lifespan of ten years. Here again, the pro­lif­er­a­tion of mega-con­stel­la­tions poses a com­pletely dif­fer­ent prob­lem: with sev­er­al tens of thou­sands of satel­lites with at least half the lifespan, the risks, whatever they may be, will increase considerably.

Space has nev­er been so high on the Amer­ic­an agenda and it’s hap­pen­ing in a very unex­pec­ted way… There is now a strong Amer­ic­an desire to gain an eco­nom­ic foothold in Europe, as under­lined by the part­ner­ships that SpaceX is try­ing to forge with Italy and Ger­many. At the same time, the new Amer­ic­an Pres­id­ent has made it very clear that Europe will have to learn to stand on its own two feet when it comes to defence. This com­bin­a­tion of wills rein­forces our pos­i­tion: we can­not be sub­ject to per­man­ent changes of dir­ec­tion for our crit­ic­al uses, or be depend­ent on eco­nom­ic­ally aggress­ive play­ers. Europe needs its stra­tegic autonomy more than ever.

Interview by Anne Orliac