Europe’s ambitious satellite Internet project appears to be running into trouble

12 comments

1. From the first section:

   >It has been 18 months since the European Union [announced its intent](https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/05/europes-major-satellite-players-line-up-to-build-starlink-competitor/) to develop an independent satellite Internet constellation, and the plans appear to be heading into troubled waters.

   >In that time, a single bid—from a consortium of multinational companies that includes Airbus Defence and Space and Thales Alenia Space—has emerged to build the network of a few hundred satellites. The companies are to build, launch, and deploy the network of satellites, intended as Europe’s answer to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite Internet service for connectivity and secure communications, by 2027.

   >However, the European Commission recently delayed the awarding of a contract to this consortium from March to an undetermined date. In April, Europe’s Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, [said](https://spacenews.com/eu-to-delay-space-law-constellation-contract/), “There is an independent committee which is working on the evaluation process. The work is being carried out extremely seriously.” He did not say when this work would conclude.

2. > The letter from Habeck is a signal that Germany, which alongside France is likely to be the main financial backer of IRIS², is not happy that most of the prime contractors are based in France or linked to the nation.

   As always with Germany, when it doesn’t benefit them, the so called alliance between EU countries vanishes.

   And they dare wondering where does the EU skepticism come from.

3. nice

4. repost.

5. Galileo is a success!

   Let’s do this too and make Elon move its satellites somewhere else!

6. The arguments might be packed into political rhetoric and words. But in the end this seems to be the right thing to do.

   Not because this wouldn’t involve any large German companies. But because it is already too expensive, too little, too late.

   Just like with Ariene6 we are setting ourselves up for failure, __because we apparently don’t want to be bold and take the lead.__

7. Maybe Breton should call his friend Musk?

8. We should invade the Ruhr again and make them pay for it

9. This calls for regulation! That’s what the EU does whenever it lags behind in any field.

10. IRIS is just dumb with Eutelsat subsidiary Oneweb already right there. The only reason this exists is to throw even more money at Ariane

11. Shame the UK isn’t working on this with France and Germany.

12. Let’s do a little unpacking and analysis here. First, “satellite internet project” seems to mean a Europe-specific internet running over a constellation of proliferated low earth orbit satellites. (Proliferated-LEO or just PLEO). Second, let’s ignore the Euro-centric internet part of the equation and just look at the space part and the engineering part.

    Europe has no PLEO constellation at this moment. And there is no company with the capability to make one or even design one. Europe does not have the capability to launch the satellites needed to make the constellation. The continent of Europe does not have a place to launch the rockets even if it had the rockets, and even if it could make the satellites. “But wait!” you say, “Europe can launch from Ariane 6 from French Guiana!” you say. But Ariane 6 can’t fly yet, and Guiana is another continent. There might be a launch site sometime in the future in Scotland and that would be good for polar orbits, but will the EU launch from the UK. It’s doubtful.

    Europe does not have the capability to design or make the satellites necessary for this constellation. But really the solution to the problem must begin at the political level and that is where the fundamental problem lies. Europe has the engineering talent, but the political will is fractured and fractious and will not come together in the foreseeable future. So let’s not fool ourselves into thinking this is a solvable problem. This will not happen anytime soon, and by the time the engineering is done the technology will be obsolete and too expensive anyway. Move on.