€3 Billion Question: Should Europe Build the IRIS² Starlink Competitor Or A Surveillance Network?

Rafal Modrzewski, CEO of ICEYE, has voiced concerns about the European Union’s IRIS² programme, which aims to create a European version of Elon Musk’s Starlink global communications system.

According to Modrzewski, the EU should avoid direct competition with Starlink and focus on areas where SpaceX has a minor advantage. He suggests investing in a military-grade satellite surveillance network to give the continent independent capabilities and compete with SpaceX’s Starshield system.

Starshield vs Starlink

Starshield is a satellite programme developed by SpaceX specifically for US national security purposes. Unlike SpaceX’s commercial Starlink satellites, which provide worldwide Internet connectivity, Starshield aims to provide secure communications, Earth observation, and payload hosting for government agencies, particularly in defence and intelligence.

The Starshield network is part of the intensifying competition between the US and its rivals to become the dominant military power in space. SpaceX’s Starshield division is building it as part of a $1.8bn contract signed in 2021 with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

The ICEYE founder said, ‘Entirely new organisations are flourishing, deploying capabilities at a speed and cost unimaginable to some of the existing prime contractors.’ As for IRIS², he said the EU is ‘trying to do something new the old way’.

IRIS² Programme

The IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite) programme was first announced by the European Council in November 2022. Its concept directly responds to the growing number of prominent satellite internet constellations outside EU control, such as Starlink, OneWeb or the upcoming Kuiper project.

It is a multi-orbit constellation of satellites in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO), Geostationary (GEO), and Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO), designed to provide secure communications services to the EU and its Member States and broadband connectivity for European citizens, private companies, and public authorities. In addition to communications, IRIS² is also planned for space surveillance and detecting high-altitude spy balloons.

The system will be fully deployed by 2027. For 12 years, SpaceRise, a single multinational industrial consortium comprising Airbus Defence and Space, Deutsche Telekom, Eutelsat, Hisdesat, Hispasat, OHB, Orange, SES, Telespazio, Thales Alenia Space, and Thales, will manage and operate it.

IRIS²: Terms And Challenges

However, IRIS² is already facing numerous challenges that have left the space industry frustrated and sceptical about its future. The programme is mired in negotiations over the terms and cost of its launch. The latest proposals raise an initial budget of €6 billion to €11.4 billion. In addition, Airbus and Thales Alenia Space are set to withdraw from the SpaceRise consortium to focus on producing the project’s technology as prime contractors.

After a series of missed deadlines, the European Commission has given the SpaceRise consortium a deadline of 2nd September to improve its performance and submit a revised proposal.

If the Commission agrees to the new plan, the EU tender evaluation team can skip the programme until around 25th September. According to the draft timetable, this would allow contracts to be signed in the first half of October, just weeks before the current European Commission ends.

Negotiations Around The IRIS² Costs

In April, German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, who also serves as the economy and climate minister, openly said he intended to delay the launch because of concerns about an ‘exorbitant’ price tag and German concerns about France’s likely bias in allocating the contracts.

These public discussions by officials are part of a more comprehensive series of technology clashes between Berlin and Paris. Paris has long made space a political priority, while Germany has been suspicious of significant investments in high-profile projects such as manned exploration.

Interestingly, Berlin has become the union’s most significant source of space spending in recent years, which has prompted the German industry to support a new satellite system.

German’s SARah Programme

Perhaps the reasons shaping the stance on IRIS² are Germany’s recent failures in satellite projects.

In July this year, the Bundeswehr was forced to admit to significant problems with one of its most important space projects, the SARah programme. This programme is central to modernising the Bundeswehr’s strategic intelligence.

At the end of 2023, SpaceX launched two new German spy satellites into space. The system was to provide high-resolution images of the Earth’s surface and 3D reliefs from space.

After launching into their planned orbit, the satellites failed to provide radar images because ‘the antenna masts with the radar sensors could not be unfolded’. The manufacturer, Bremen-based OHB, has been trying to solve the problem for more than six months, but according to the ministry, all emergency measures ‘have so far failed.’

The system’s abbreviation SAR stands for Synthetic Aperture Radar. Radar satellites have a decisive advantage over optical satellites equipped with cameras: they actively emit electromagnetic pulses and can take pictures regardless of weather and time of day.

After the USA and Russia, Germany has become the third country in the world to have a radar reconnaissance satellite system since the end of 2007. A network of five small satellites built by OHB, called SAR-Lupe, could take images with a resolution of less than one metre. The photos were a strategic advantage in the mission in Afghanistan, for example, to clarify the situation on Earth from space. However, the SAR-Lupe system needs to be updated. The original service life of ten years has long since expired, but now it is hoped that they will last at least a few more years.

ICEYE’s Satellite Network

The Finnish company ICEYE, for its part, is also making images of its radar satellites available to the Ukrainian army. We published earlier that the Ukrainians have already ordered more than 4,173 radar images from the Finns. Over a third of the imagery has been used to plan precision strikes against Russian targets.

ICEYE, a young Finnish satellite company, supports building a network of more than 100 surveillance satellites equipped with SAR sensors and is ready to lead the initiative in partnership with other space startups such as French company Unseenlabs, Belgian optics specialist Aerospacelab, and D-Orbit, which is based in Italy.

The European Commission, instead of an admittedly unsuccessful race with Elon Musk’s Starlink, could launch its programme aimed at creating a defence-ready surveillance network for the military, spy agencies and disaster relief organisations, Modrzewski said. Such a programme could cost between 2 billion and 3 billion euros.

‘This is 100 per cent the answer to Starshield,’ Modrzewski said. ‘Europe has to ask itself: are we just going to let the United States own Earth surveillance in the future?’

ICEYE’s Microsatellites: What Are The Benefits?

Unlike other companies deploying similar technology, ICEYE uses microsatellites that weigh less than 100kg, which is about ten times smaller than a conventional satellite. The company claims to offer much cheaper services with these smaller satellites than its competitors.

Rafal Modrzewski has a good idea of what New Space is all about, as he co-founded the satellite start-up ICEYE just over ten years ago. Since founding the project with Pekka Laurila in 2012, which became a company in 2014, Modrzewski has been responsible for overseeing the organisation’s growth and realising ICEYE’s overall vision. In 2018, he received the Forbes 30 under 30 Technology Award for his company’s first global achievements.

Now with over 600 employees and revenues exceeding $100 million in 2023, the company is valued at nearly a billion dollars and operates a constellation of 30 microsatellites with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors to monitor natural disasters and conflicts around the world, making it one of Europe’s most promising space startups.