The estimated cost of the IRIS² program of more than 10 billion euros is almost double the initial projections. European officials also confirmed that the sovereign satellite network will not start 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 that the SpaceRISE consortium's proposal for IRIS² had a total cost of 12 billion euros. It appears that the price was negotiated, at least by a small percentage, up to around 10 billion.
It is also worth noting that this year the EU will only commit to financing the IRIS² initiative until the end of 2027, when the commission's seven-year budgetary framework expires. It is almost certain that the IRIS² program will require more public funding after 2027, but the European Commission said it will decide on additional money later, depending on the “availability of the corresponding appropriations.”
In April, a senior official in the German government, the EU's main contributor, called for the IRIS² program to be restarted. Robert Habeck, Germany's economics minister, called the proposed price of 12 billion euros “exorbitant” and said the entire project was “poorly thought out” in a letter to Thierry Breton, then EU internal market commissioner, according to a report in the German newspaper. Handelsblatt.
Habeck's protest obviously did not prevent 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 deployed at various orbital altitudes, from low Earth orbit to medium Earth orbit, several thousand kilometers above the planet.
At these higher altitudes, IRIS² can cover the world with fewer satellites than Starlink, OneWeb or Amazon Kuiper.
The commission's press release said the agreement, the largest space contract in the EU's history, should be signed in December. At that point, “legal and financial obligations will be requested from both parties,” the committee said.
The SpaceRISE consortium includes numerous European satellite and telecom companies, including spacecraft manufacturers Airbus Defense 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 generally competitors in the satellite and telecom markets, as are SES, Eutelsat and Hispasat, which lead the consortium. It will not be an easy task to get all contractors and subcontractors to play nice with each other.
