Summary
- The revised main constellation will contain 348 satellites — 330 in low Earth orbit and 18 in medium Earth orbit.
- The expansion adds 66 LEO satellites with enhanced functionality for defence, security, and emergency-service users.
- First launches are now planned for 2029, with the Commission projecting substantially more secure governmental communications capacity.
The European Union is expanding and accelerating its sovereign satellite communications programme, increasing IRIS² to a main constellation of 348 satellites and adding capacity designed for defence, security, emergency services, and government communications.
The European Commission and the SpaceRISE consortium have moved the Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite programme into its next implementation phase following an agreement announced on 7 August.
The revised architecture will comprise 330 satellites in higher low Earth orbit and 18 in medium Earth orbit. The expansion incorporates 66 additional LEO satellites intended to strengthen functionality for defence, security, and emergency-service applications.
The European Space Agency said the additional satellites bring the main constellation to 348. The Commission has also brought first launches forward to 2029, with sovereign, secure, and accredited European connectivity services expected to become available progressively afterwards.
The Commission projects that the redesign will provide 60% more secure governmental communications capacity inside the EU and 54% more worldwide compared with the previous architecture. Optional elements could be deployed for particular missions.
IRIS² is intended to reduce Europe’s dependence on communications infrastructure controlled outside the bloc while providing connectivity that remains available during disruption, crisis, or degradation of terrestrial networks.
Those objectives increasingly overlap with defence and cyber resilience. Satellite communications can support public administration, emergency response, border operations, military activity, transport, and infrastructure management where terrestrial networks are unavailable or contested.
The war in Ukraine has made the strategic role of commercial satellite connectivity particularly visible. It has also exposed the political and procurement consequences of relying heavily on individual private providers for communications that governments may regard as essential during conflict.
IRIS² is therefore being developed as infrastructure as much as a connectivity product. Ownership, availability, security accreditation, ground systems, launch capacity, supply chains, and the ability to operate during geopolitical disruption all contribute to whether the service can provide genuine resilience.
The programme also sits alongside the EU’s wider effort to reduce critical digital dependencies. European policy increasingly treats communications, cloud infrastructure, data centres, subsea cables, semiconductor supply, and satellite systems as interconnected resilience concerns rather than independent technology markets.
The expanded constellation does not remove dependency from every part of that chain. Satellites still require European manufacturing capacity, ground infrastructure, launch services, user terminals, secure software, and long-term operations, while deployment will take several years.
The agreement nevertheless moves IRIS² further from policy ambition into infrastructure delivery. By allocating a larger part of the constellation to defence and emergency use and bringing launches forward, the EU is putting greater weight behind secure communications as an operational capability rather than a future strategic objective.
