16th December 2024 marked an important date in the evolution of European Union satellite communications strategic autonomy.
That day, the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, signed a concession contract for constructing the Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite provision. Better known as IRIS2, the European Space Agency (ESA) will procure and operate the capability. ESA signed the contract with an industrial consortium known as SpaceRISE. The consortium comprises a trio of companies namely Eutelsat, Hispasat and SES. The satellite constellation will provide secure government and military communications, and commercial links with IRIS2 costing circa $11 billion. The EU will provide $6.2 billion, $4.2 billion will be provided by the private sector with $570.4 million coming from ESA.
Defence and security considerations are front and centre of IRIS2’s philosophy. The EU’s own documents foresee the constellation playing a “crucial role in transforming the defence and security field, improving border and maritime surveillance, crisis management such as humanitarian aid and protection of essential communications and infrastructure.” The constellation will help support EU external operations while providing deeper European Union military connectivity. The latter point is particularly important from a strategic, operational and tactical Command and Control (C2) perspective. Improving EU military C2 is vital for external operations and for protecting the European Union against external aggression. The EU currently leads military missions in Mozambique, the Central African Republic, Somalia and Ukraine. EU military operations are underway in Bosnia-Herzegovina; the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, in the Mediterranean and off the Horn of Africa.
Architecture
Laurent Jaffart, ESA’s director of connectivity and secure communications and head of the ESA’s European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications, told Armada that launches of the IRIS2 satellites will start in 2029, with full provision of SATCOM services commencing one year later. Mr. Jaffart added that development of the satellites and their accompanying infrastructure is already underway. Satellite production should commence in 2026.
IRIS2 will have use a multi orbit constellation of 292 satellites with 264 satellites in a high Medium Earth Orbit (MEO). MEO orbits are between 1,079 nautical miles/nm (2,000 kilometres/km) and 19,323nm (35,786km) above sea level. A further 18 satellites will be in standard MEO orbits with ten in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). LEO satellites typically orbit at altitudes below 1,079nm. Mr. Jaffart says that the constellation will carry secure military/government K-band (18 gigahertz/GHz to 27GHz) links. Government communications will also be possible using Ka-band (26.5-40GHz uplink/18-20GHz downlink) transmissions. Commercial SATCOM services will be provided using Ku-band (14GHz uplink/10.9-12.75GHz downlink) links. He continued that IRIS2 encompasses the development of military Ka-band terminals. Development of these terminals will be in addition to the ground infrastructure that will be rolled out to support the constellation. Bandwidths in the order of tens of megabits-per-second are expected to be provided by the constellation.
Mr. Jaffart stressed that government and military link provision includes a transparent mode. This means that existing secure waveforms used by militaries on the frequencies above can be carried across the constellation. He says that robust communications and transmission security has been built into the IRIS2 architecture from the outset. This provision includes state-of-the-art cryptography and cyber resilience. As the capability is owned and operated by the EU this will guarantee service provision. Privately-owned SATCOM is at the mercy of the markets, or of the owner deciding to cease service provision. Over the longer term, Mr. Jaffart adds that techniques like quantum key encryption could be used to enhance security.
by Dr. Thomas Withington
