By Gianluca Lo Nostro<\/p>\n
Jan 16 (Reuters) – European satellite operator Eutelsat said on Friday it had signed a deal with French space startup MaiaSpace for \u200bthe future launches of its low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, in a major \u200cstrategic boost for Europe as it seeks to catch up with U.S. rival SpaceX.<\/p>\n
The agreement with MaiaSpace, \u200ca subsidiary of Europe’s largest rocket maker ArianeGroup, is a multi-launch deal set to start in 2027.<\/p>\n
MaiaSpace will add a complementary launch option alongside existing partners, said Arlen Kassighian, chief engineering officer at Eutelsat.<\/p>\n
Eutelsat owns OneWeb, which is currently the world’s only other operational \u2060LEO constellation besides Elon Musk’s \u200cStarlink.<\/p>\n
OneWeb is considered a strategic asset by the French and British governments, two of Eutelsat’s largest shareholders, because its satellites provide secure \u200dinternet access to governments, militaries, businesses and consumers in underserved areas.<\/p>\n
French President Emmanuel Macron last year called on Europe to step up its space strategy to counter Starlink, and said on \u200bThursday that France would accelerate the use of LEO satellite constellations.<\/p>\n
MaiaSpace is developing \u200ca partially reusable mini-launcher that would make it the first of its kind in Europe.<\/p>\n
Reusable rockets help reduce launch costs and allow for more frequent launches.<\/p>\n
SpaceX has been using its partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket for more than a decade and is testing an upgraded version, Starship, designed for full reusability.<\/p>\n
Ariane 6 is Europe’s main heavy \u2060launch system but it is not reusable. SpaceX’s \u200brockets have supported a high launch frequency that enabled \u200bthe deployment of more than 9,000 Starlink satellites.<\/p>\n
Eutelsat has relied on SpaceX and the Indian Space Research Organisation for recent launches, though OneWeb \u200dsent its first satellites \u2060into orbit with Russia’s Soyuz before cancelling the partnership in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n
Eutelsat, which acquired OneWeb in 2023, plans to \u2060launch 440 Airbus-built LEO satellites in the coming years to replenish and expand its constellation.<\/p>\n
MaiaSpace, founded \u200cin 2022, expects to begin commercial operations in 2026.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Gianluca Lo \u200cNostro in Gdansk; Editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Gianluca Lo Nostro Jan 16 (Reuters) – European satellite operator Eutelsat said on Friday it had signed…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":520427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[440,160963,6226,231776,38218,57267,2540,159,783,2527,11182,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-520426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-europe","9":"tag-eutelsat","10":"tag-launch","11":"tag-leo-constellation","12":"tag-low-earth-orbit","13":"tag-oneweb","14":"tag-satellites","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-space","17":"tag-spacex","18":"tag-starlink","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115904981524584662","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}