The war in ukraine ha changed the mentality of Europe. The need for greater autonomy to not depend so much on foreign supplies of all kinds has led to the EU to try to accelerate its programs in almost all fields. From war to energy, passing through the technological issue, with a ‘spatial’ look.
Because space goes far beyond conquering the Moon or Mars. The dependence on the European Union of the American satellite systems for security has been revealed almost completely. AND the sights point towards Starlinkone of Elon Musk’s great companies.
And, as pointed out by , the same war in Ukraine initiated by Russia highlighted a painful reality, which currently, Europe does not have sovereign capacity equivalent to the services provided by Starlink. And it’s time to wake up.
In recent years, the space issue as a Defense industry has forced Brussels to reinforce the investment in a sector that is already seen as “critical”. Community projects for sovereign satellite systems are now multiplying, but the EU is late.
The European Commission and other community organizations (acronym for Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Satellite Security). It consists of the secure satellite internet constellation to guarantee digital sovereignty and government communications. It will consist of a network of 290 satellites in low, medium and geostationary orbits.
The EU wants IRIS² to be its answer to Starlink, but in parallel there are already member countries developing their own national plans, such as Alemania (SATCOMBw), France (Syracuse) o Italia (SICRAL)apart from United Kingdom (Skynet)as a European actor but not a member of the EU.
But the analysis of Euractiv with specialists in the field makes it clear that proposing a realistic alternative to Starlink “It’s not just about launching satellites and declaring victory“. Elon Musk’s company works thanks to its scale, after having carried out thousands of satellite launches and developing infrastructures of very high capacities. The aforementioned portal adds that replicating this model requires not millions of investment, “but tens of billions of euros over many years.”
