Europe's ambitious satellite Internet project appears to be running into trouble
The European Commission and European Space Agency are jointly investing in the project to develop these capabilities. However, the IRIS² constellation is intended to be a public-private partnership, with the space companies also investing in the project and subsequently profiting from selling communication services.
The problem is that the major players involved, such as Airbus, are not accustomed to operating in space projects in this way. Typically, they are given government contracts to provide services rather than investing significant amounts of their own capital.
The letter from Habeck is a signal that Germany, which alongside France is likely to be the main financial backer of IRIS², is not happy that most of the prime contractors are based in France or linked to the nation. In addition, Breton is French. And finally, it appears the operations for the constellation will be based primarily in Italy.
It probably won’t be hasty
Competition between France and Germany in spaceflight, despite both nations being prominent members of the European Union, has been long-running. One example is the Ariane 6 rocket, the continent's new launch vehicle. Its design grew out of a compromise that saw France responsible for the rocket's first stage and Germany primarily responsible for the upper stage.
In recent years, both nations have sought to foster an environment in which new space companies can develop and flourish. Another source of tension in the development of the IRIS² constellation is that up to one-third of the contract value was supposed to go to smaller space companies rather than the prime contractors. However, this looks increasingly unlikely to happen.
It should really come as no surprise that Europe is seeing delays with the IRIS² constellation and probable cost overruns. Internet constellations are hard, and Europe has several hurdles to overcome. There is the Ariane 6 rocket, which is four years late and already has a busy manifest and technical difficulty in building such satellites. And there is the challenge of coordinating such a complex endeavor across many different constituencies.
All of this will likely eventually get sorted out, and European companies are certainly capable of building excellent satellites. But a sovereign European satellite Internet constellation is probably not coming before the end of this decade, nor at a low price.