WARSAW, Poland \u2014 The Spanish government announced it will allocate between 1.6 billion and 2 billion euros ($1.8 to $2.3 billion) to develop a national military satellite communications constellation that could be integrated into the planned IRIS\u00b2 multi-orbit satellite internet constellation.<\/p>\n
The project was presented during the July 29 meeting of Spain\u2019s National Committee for Technological Security and Sovereignty, a government body, during which the Ministry of Defense discussed the addition of 15 new special modernization programs (SMPs) planned for 2026 and the National LEO Capability program planned for 2027.<\/p>\n
The funding for the \u201cMulti-Orbit SATCOM SMP\u201d will be allocated to \u201cthe development of the space segment, the ground-based control and management segment, and the operation of the system throughout its life cycle,\u201d the ministry said in a document<\/a>.<\/p>\n Spanish officials did immediately release the number of satellites in the constellation.\u00a0<\/p>\n European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius praised Madrid\u2019s commitment, saying it comes amid member states\u2019 rising interest in joining the European Union\u2019s initiative.<\/p>\n The IRIS\u00b2 constellation is designed to secure governmental satellite communications for the EU while facilitating the bloc\u2019s efforts to ensure high-speed internet broadband and address connectivity dead zones. The project is widely considered the EU\u2019s answer to SpaceX\u2019s Starlink.<\/p>\n S\u00e1nchez first unveiled the country\u2019s plans to kick off a program to co-finance IRIS\u00b2 in May. Speaking at the 2026 Space Congress in Madrid, S\u00e1nchez said<\/a> that Spain can become \u201ca European benchmark in the space sector\u201d and its space industry \u201ccontinues to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n The initiative represents \u201ca great opportunity for the development and consolidation of the national industrial value chain, both in satellite manufacturing and in its ground segment,\u201d the prime minister said. \u201cIt is about Europe making real progress towards true space sovereignty, consistent with its ambition to be sovereign in the strategic domains of the future\u201d.<\/p>\n S\u00e1nchez also said the Spanish space sector\u2019s revenues reached the level of around 1.5 billion euros in 2025, and the industry has created close to 8,000 highly skilled jobs.<\/p>\n Spain\u2019s announcement comes days after another member state, Poland, declared<\/a> it would commit around 2.8 billion Polish Zloty ($749 million) to participate in the IRIS\u00b2 project. Like Spain, Warsaw will finance the construction of six MEO satellites and six LEO satellites, as well as a gateway ground station, the Polish government said in a statement<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Marcin Kierwi\u0144ski, Poland\u2019s Minister of the Interior and Administration, said that the nation\u2019s participation in IRIS\u00b2 could also facilitate numerous business opportunities for more than 400 companies active in the Polish space sector.<\/p>\n The 10.6 billion euro project is expected to reach full operational capacity by 2030, when it will ensure its complete set of services, according to Brussels. Under the plan, it will consist of some 292 satellites operating in different orbits. Of these, 18 are to be positioned in MEO, 264 in higher low Earth orbit, and 10 in lower low Earth orbit, according to figures from the European Commission\u2019s Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WARSAW, Poland \u2014 The Spanish government announced it will allocate between 1.6 billion and 2 billion euros ($1.8…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[66,25168,25794,20930,17],"class_list":["post-63837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-europe","tag-iris2","tag-multi-orbit-satcom-smp","tag-sn","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}