ROME/PARIS (Reuters) – Europe’s largest space groups revealed on Thursday a preliminary agreement to join forces in the manufacture and provision of satellite services, after months of negotiations to combat the uncontrolled growth of rivals led by Elon Musk’s Starlink.
The deal between Airbus, Thales and Leonardo will create a new venture based in France from 2027, in the most ambitious union of European aerospace assets since missile maker MBDA in 2001.
French Finance Minister Roland Lescure said the agreement “will strengthen European sovereignty in a context of intense global competition”.
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The new combination will employ 25,000 people with revenue of 6.5 billion euros, based on 2024 figures.
It is expected to generate synergies in the order of hundreds of millions of euros from five years onwards, the companies said, without detailing how this would be achieved.
The companies, which have already cut a total of 3,000 jobs across their space businesses, did not mention further cuts, but executives said the focus would now turn to potential growth.
Codenamed “Project Bromo”, talks between the three aerospace groups began last year in an attempt to copy the cooperation model of European missile maker MBDA, which is owned by Airbus, Leonardo and BAE Systems.
Europe’s major satellite manufacturers have long competed to build complex spacecraft in geostationary orbit, but have been impacted by the arrival of smaller, cheaper satellites in low Earth orbit, especially the Starlink network built by SpaceX.
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(Reporting by Giulia Segreti in Rome and Tim Hepher in Paris)
