On 31 October the European Commission awarded the concession contract to develop, deploy, and operate Europe’s to date biggest investment in secure and resilient connectivity, IRIS2, to the SpaceRISE consortium. It is the aim that the IRIS2 constellation will offer enhanced and secure communication capacities to governmental users and businesses in Europe, as well as ensure high-speed internet broadband to cope with connectivity dead zones.
With the awarding of the concession contract, and the signature of the concession agreement scheduled by December 2024, the IRIS2 procurement enters its final phase, upon which the legal and financial commitment from both parties will be taken.
The 12-year concession contract consists in a public-private partnership to acquire a system composed of over 290 satellites in various orbits as well as an associated ground segment. Under the 12-year agreement, ESA will – on behalf of the European Commission – work with space companies in the EU to develop and validate in orbit the IRIS2 constellation. To support the industry, ESA plans to host information and industry days for interested IRIS2 subcontractors at the beginning of the new year. Further details as well as dedicated technical reference persons will be published once they have fallen into place.
ESA partnership projects may present themselves within technical areas such as
- Communication hardware (e.g. active antenna activities for LEO and MEO, UT antennas, and optical communication)
- On-board processing
- Data handling systems
- Electrical propulsion
- Avionics
- Satellite structure and assembly and integration testing
- Heat pipes
- Guidance, navigation, and control (e.g. reaction wheels, star trackers, and attitude orbit control systems)
- Power (e.g. PPUs, PCDUs, solar arrays, electrical power subsystems, and batteries)
- Mission control center
- Constellation flying simulator.
Please note though that, this is not an exhaustive nor consolidated list.
Interested parties are encouraged to reach out to the Danish delegation, who will compile a list of potential Danish IRIS2 subcontractors. This list will be forwarded to ESA and SpaceRISE later in the planning of the information days. Companies do not need support from the Danish delegation to partake in the information days, and reaching out is therefore completely voluntary.