The European Commission has officially announced its intention to allocate 2.4 billion euros to create a new "constellation" of satellites that will expand the community capacity that Europe currently has, and we are talking about an extremely serious measure.
The European Commission says that this new "constellation" of satellites is to be called "IRIS²", and more details about what it intends to do for Europeans.
"The Commission welcomes the political agreement reached today between the European Parliament and EU Member States on the Union's Secure Connectivity Program 2023-2027, with a budget of EUR 2,4 billion.
The program aims to deploy an EU satellite constellation to be called "IRIS²" (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security via Satellite). The negotiations have now ended, paving the way for the final approval of the legal text by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.
The functioning of our economy and our security increasingly depend on secure and resilient connectivity. It is essential for Europe to develop a sovereign, autonomous and secure connectivity infrastructure.
Digital hyper-connectivity and technological transformation are causing an unprecedented increase in demand for services dependent on cutting-edge technologies. Both government needs and satellite communications solutions are changing rapidly.
Satellite-based connectivity via low Earth orbit will also enable Europe to provide ultra-secure connectivity to the armed forces. The secure communications system in the EU space aims to meet these growing and evolving needs and ensure guaranteed access in an unrestricted manner, avoiding dependencies on third countries and strengthening the resilience of our value chains.
It will include the latest quantum communication technologies for secure encryption by integrating the European Quantum Communications Infrastructure (EuroQCI). It will be based on developing innovative and disruptive technologies and capitalizing on the New Space ecosystem."
After Galileo and Copernicus, we are adding a third constellation to our strategic space infrastructures: IRIS² 🛰️.
With a €2.4 billion budget, the new satellite constellation will contribute to developing a sovereign, autonomous and secure connectivity infrastructure in 🇪🇺 ↓
- European Commission 🇪🇺 (@EU_Commission) November 18, 2022
