EU Gives Old Boys Club European Consortium 6 Billion Euros for LEO
EU Gives Old Boys Club European Consortium 6 Billion Euros for LEO Every major world power bloc wants its own LEO satellite constellation. The EU is no exception. It has agreed to give a European consortium consisting of SES, Eutelsat, and Hipasat, 6 billion Euros to develop and deploy by 2030 a total of 290 LEO and MEO satellites. Obviously the EU wants the security and privacy of a homegrown communication system to be called IRIS that could back up terrestrial and subsea cables. I understand the impulse. The Europeans face an aggressive Russia and a surveillance happy US government with a President who is more comfortable with dictators than the democratically elected. At the same time it is clear that there will be glut of low lying satellite capacity in the near future. Starlink has obviously a huge lead over the European project. In addition, marketing juggernaut Amazon began deployment in early 2024 of its 3,236 satellite system. Customer acquisition costs often determine th...