This week, the Ukrainian army reported restrictions to the Starlink satellite service. The connection drops as soon as the receivers are travelling at more than 160 kilometres per hour, as is the case with drones.
The service was initially partially restored, but an upper limit remained in place. It is unclear who ordered the restriction.
SpaceX boss Elon Musk rejected responsibility that the company ordered the shutdown. Starshield is under the direct control of the US government, he wrote on X.
It is important to distinguish between the two systems: Starlink and Starshield are both developed by SpaceX but aimed at different customers. Starlink is the service for private and business users, Starshield is designed for governments and the military.
Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski reacted sharply on X, writing: “Hey, Elon Musk, you big man, are you once again playing politics with your products? As your European customers we are keeping a close eye on you.”
Poland has paid for a large share of the Ukrainian terminals. This has once again raised the question of how dependent armed forces are on satellite links. Europe has therefore been working for some time on its own solution.
The European answer: IRIS²
The EU has been developing IRIS², its own satellite network, for around six years. The acronym stands for “Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite”.
In German this roughly means infrastructure for resilience, connectivity and security via satellites. The system is intended to provide secure connections for governments, companies and citizens and to close mobile coverage gaps in Europe and Africa.
For encryption it will rely on quantum technology via the European quantum communication infrastructure EuroQCI.
In early August, the European Commission and the SpaceRISE consortium agree on the implementation. The network will grow to 348 satellites, 330 in low Earth orbit and 18 in medium Earth orbit.
A further 66 additional satellites are intended specifically to strengthen defence, security and emergency services. According to the Commission’s calculations, this will increase secured capacity for public-sector users by 60 percent in the EU and by 54 percent worldwide.
The focus is on states, the military and critical services; later on, private individuals are also to be able to use the network. The first satellites are scheduled to launch in 2029. Initial services are to be introduced gradually from 2029 or 2030.
Germany’s role
Germany is represented by the Bremen-based space company Orbitale Hochtechnologie Bremen (OHB).
On 31 August it signed a contract worth just under €1 billion with satellite operator SES for 18 satellites in medium Earth orbit for IRIS².
A single satellite weighs around 2.6 tonnes at launch. OHB chief executive Marco Fuchs sees the programme as an important step towards greater European independence.
Germany’s share of the project sparked disputes early on.
In December 2023, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs sent a strongly worded letter to the companies involved demanding urgent clarification of the German industry’s participation and its share in value creation, as reported by the Frankfurter Rundschau daily.
Bundeswehr: Its own satellite network?
Independently of IRIS², the Bundeswehr is planning its own satellite network. It is a national project financed by the federal government.
Major General Armin Fleischmann, the Bundeswehr’s space commissioner in the Cyber and Information Domain, told regional public broadcaster MDR that the plan is for a constellation similar to Starlink, only smaller.
He told the Handelsblatt business newspaper they wanted to have “flying Fritzboxes” in space. The network is initially to cover NATO’s eastern flank, under national control. Individual components will come from Western partners, including the United States.
As early as September 2025, defence minister Boris Pistorius announced at the space congress of the Federation of German Industries in Berlin that a total of €35 billion would be invested in military space projects by 2030. In July he visited OHB in Bremen to inspect satellite programmes and ongoing production.
The project is called SATCOMBw 4, short for satellite communication of the Bundeswehr. In its final expansion stage, according to the Bundeswehr, it is to comprise a three-digit number of satellites in low Earth orbit and cost between eight and ten billion euros. An initial partial constellation with up to 40 satellites is scheduled to be operational as early as 2029, with full operations planned from 2030.
The joint venture “OHB Rheinmetall Space Networks”, based in Bremen, is bidding for the contract According to company information, OHB would be responsible for the satellites, Rheinmetall for the ground stations and end devices. No decision has yet been taken.
Industry reports suggest that the contract award could come around the turn of the year, though insiders consider early 2027 possible as well. OHB would then be involved in both major projects: in IRIS² as satellite manufacturer and in the Bundeswehr network as part of the joint venture.
Up to now, the Bundeswehr has been using two of its own satellites in geostationary orbit at around 36,000 kilometres altitude, COMSATBw-1 and COMSATBw-2, launched in 2009 and 2010.
Their successors are being built by Airbus and are scheduled to be handed over in orbit in 2029. The first of the three German radar satellites SARah was launched in 2022 on a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX.
Young Belgian company helping to build Europe’s satellite network
The satellites for IRIS² are being built by several companies. The largest share will not be supplied by an established group but by a young company:
Aerospacelab, founded in 2018 and based in Charleroi in Belgium, is building 264 satellites for low Earth orbit.
The order volume amounts to €2.4 billion, according to the company. The satellites are to be delivered by 2030. They will be produced in a new factory in Charleroi, where up to 500 satellites per year are to be built from 2027.
Airbus is building at least 66 satellites in the first layer for military communication, which are due to be ready in 2029. This means the entire low-orbit segment with 330 satellites has been allocated.
Together with the 18 OHB satellites for medium orbit, the network will comprise 348 satellites.
How realistic is 2029?
Whether the timetable can be met remains an open question. The first satellites are scheduled to launch in 2029; according to media reports, the original plan was for them to go up two years earlier.
Experts view rocket launches as the bottleneck. Even the best satellites cannot reach space without rockets and those unable to launch them themselves remain dependent on others.
Europe is relying on the Ariane 6 launch vehicle, which has been lifting off into space since 2024. Andreas Knopp of the Bundeswehr University Munich points out in the weekly paper Das Parlament that the number of launches is limited, while political scientist Antje Nötzold of TU Chemnitz speaks in MDR of a “launcher problem.”
So far this year, Ariane 6 has launched four times, three of those flights carrying satellites for Amazon Leo into orbit, the US company’s satellite internet service that is also intended to compete with Starlink.
Amazon has booked at least 18 Ariane 6 launches. In early August, the Commission named the procurement of launch services for IRIS² as one of the next steps.