Aviation Week
• Robert Wall
The European Commission has agreed with an industrial consortium to expand and accelerate IRIS², its sovereign secure-connectivity constellation, with first launches targeted for 2029. Indra’s Hispasat will lead a services contract worth more than €1.6 billion, while total program investment is expected to exceed $18 billion.
ESA
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The European Commission has agreed with an industrial consortium to expand and accelerate IRIS², its sovereign secure-connectivity constellation, with first launches targeted for 2029. Indra’s Hispasat will lead a services contract worth more than €1.6 billion, while total program investment is expected to exceed $18 billion.
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OHB SE says Ariane 6 could lose German, European government and commercial launch business unless political authorities quickly approve a sharp expansion of capacity at Europe’s spaceport. The German space hardware provider argues that investment must come first if Europe is to capture growing demand and keep work within its space industry.
A pointed examination of Europe’s space strategy asks ten uncomfortable questions about what the region has achieved, what has returned, and why European institutions often articulate ambitions without clearly assigning responsibility for delivery or outcomes.
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ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot has completed a third evaluation of the EuroSuit intravehicular activity spacesuit prototype aboard the International Space Station. The repeated on-orbit testing advances Europe’s assessment of a domestically developed suit for crew operations and helps validate its design in the space-station environment.
Europe is pursuing new launch capabilities across the sector, but establishing a competitive and reliable launcher ecosystem remains challenging. This field guide examines the current state of European launchers and the hurdles facing the continent’s efforts to strengthen access to space.
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ArianeGroup has completed a wet dress rehearsal of its Themis reusable booster demonstrator at Esrange Space Centre in Sweden. The milestone advances ground verification for the program’s reusable propulsion and launch-system integration, paving the way for subsequent test activity.
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ESA has tapped Aalyria for a solar-system network-operations center and commissioned an optical ground station in Luxembourg aimed at ultra-secure, quantum-enabled satellite communications. SES will route station data via its O3b mPOWER network ahead of Starlab. Italy’s PRISMA Second Generation hyperspectral mission is moving toward a 2031 launch with Thales Alenia Space and OHB Italia.
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