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Defence Industry and Space
News article17 November 2022

Welcome IRIS²: Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite

   

trilogue

An institutional deal on the Secure Connectivity Programme, a name for the new Satellite Constellation.

The European Parliament and the European Council, under the Czech Presidency, gave the green light to the Secure Connectivity programme during yesterday’s last trilogue meeting.

The new Satellite Constellation named IRIS2, is the European Union’s answer to pressing challenge of tomorrow, offering enhanced communication capacities to governmental users, businesses, while ensuring high-speed internet broadband to cope with connectivity dead zones.

The system will support a large variety of governmental applications, mainly in the domains of situational awareness (e.g. border surveillance), crisis management (e.g. humanitarian aid) and connection and protection of key infrastructures (e.g. secure communications for EU embassies).

On the commercial side, it will allow mass-market applications, including mobile and fixed broadband satellite access, satellite trunking for B2B services, satellite access for transportation, reinforced networks by satellite and satellite broadband and cloud-based services.

In a disruptive and secured-by-design approach, this multi-orbital satellite constellation will ensure the long-term availability of reliable, secure and cost-effective satellite communications services at a global scale.

A technology setter, expanding the services of #EUSpace for our final economic and security frontier.

The Secure Connectivity Programme will follow an incremental approach with the ambition to deliver initial services in 2024 and reach full operational capability by 2027.

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Publication date
17 November 2022