The project is valued at some 10.6 billion, with public funding from the European Commission, EU Member States, and the European Space Agency representing c. 60% of the total project cost.
The SpaceRISE consortium comprising Eutelsat, Hispasat, and SES, has signed an agreement that will see the consortium design, build, and operate the IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite) constellation on behalf of the European Union under a Public-private Partnership (PPP) model in the form of Concession with an initial duration of 12 years.
The constellation will comprise around 290 spacecraft including 264 low Earth orbit (LEO) and 18 medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellites and is expected to be in service in 2030. The EU and Member States will be the anchor customers of the IRIS2 constellation, which will deliver enhanced communication solutions and high-speed broadband connectivity for consumers, governments and businesses, reinforcing Europes digital sovereignty and security.
The project is valued at some 10.6 billion, with public funding from the European Commission, EU Member States, and the European Space Agency representing c. 60% of the total project cost, supplemented by private financing from the consortium members.
SESs contribution to IRIS2 will be to develop, procure, and operate 18 new MEO satellites providing 100% pole-to-pole coverage with carrier-grade connectivity solutions. SES will have rights to commercialise the MEO capacity and part of the LEO capacity of the IRIS2 system. The compelling combination of high throughput data rates, low latency, service flexibility, and managed solutions will cater to EUs sophisticated requirements, as well as allied nations and SESs customers around the world.
SES plans to invest up to 1.8 billion pounds into the constellation, approximately 50% of the MEO cost. SES said this CapEx will start ramping from 2027 and have an average annual spend of around 400 million euros over 2027-2030.
IRIS² enables the profitable expansion of our differentiated MEO architecture into the next decade, while giving us access to LEO with owners economics, to keep pace with the rapidly growing customer demand in our target segments where we have a strong right to win, record of delivering value for our customers, and history of growth execution, said SES CEO Adel al Saleh.
Eutelsat will act as Consortium System Development Prime, the technical authority within the consortium. In this role it will leverage its unique LEO expertise and make available its priority spectrum rights in the Ku band to lead on the design of the LEO segment of the constellation, as well as co-leading on the conception of the common elements. The company expects to generate revenues of at least 6.5bn from anchor EU customers and the global distribution of its LEO capacity commercial customers. The operator said that IRIS² will give the operator at least 1.5 Tbps of additional sellable LEO capacity.
