IRIS² (European sovereign constellation)
The European Union's telecommunications constellation, decided in 2023 so that secure government communications no longer depend on non-European operators.
IRIS² answers a risk that the war in Ukraine made concrete: a state that entrusts its secure communications to a foreign constellation depends on another country's policy and on a company's choices. The program combines satellites in low and medium orbit, funded partly by the Union and partly by a consortium of private operators under a concession contract. For space insurance, it creates a large fleet launched within a few years, and therefore an accumulation of launch and commissioning risks. It also turns a political decision, sovereignty, into the driver of an industrial investment: schedule and cost-overrun risk there is a state risk as much as a corporate one.
Regulation (EU) 2023/588 of March 15, 2023 established the program, at an estimated total cost of about 10.6 billion euros; the concession contract was signed on December 16, 2024 with the SpaceRISE consortium, formed by three European satellite operators, for service targeted around 2030.
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