APOGEE STAFF
The European Parliament has approved plans to deploy a new satellite communications constellation in response to the war in Ukraine. Approved in early 2023, the Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnection and Security by Satellites (IRISS) constellation proposal received near unanimous support.
“The Russian military aggression against Ukraine has demonstrated how crucial space-based sovereign and secure communication services are in case of conflict,” Thierry Breton, European Union commissioner for the internal market, said in a statement. “It also represents a game changer for EU citizens thanks to the development of high-speed broadband removing communication dead zones and strengthening [the] EU’s cohesion policy.”
The European Parliament had set aside $2.53 billion for the project. The European Space Agency and private sector are also contributing.
The vote came 10 days before the one-year anniversary of the Russia invasion. As tanks prepared to cross into Ukraine, Russian hackers launched an attack on a satellite communications system, knocking out broadband internet service across the nation and in other parts of eastern Europe, affecting millions of users. Soon after, Elon Musk’s SpaceX stepped in to restore communications by allowing users to access its Starlink satellite system. The hackers’ efforts nevertheless underscored the need for secure broadband communications in Europe.
The focus of IRISS program is to build an architecture of up to 170 satellites in a low Earth orbit constellation between 2025 and 2027 and further assets in medium Earth and geostationary orbits, according to a report on Space.com.
The new constellation “will soon join its counterparts Galileo and Copernicus and complement them by providing sovereign, secure, resilient and cost-effective seamless communication services, with initial services by 2024 and full operational capacity by 2027,” said a statement from the EU Commission’s Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space.