Here's the orbital stuff if anyone was wondering:
- "That funding will go towards the development and launch of satellites in three orbits. Eighteen satellites will operate in medium Earth orbit (MEO) at an altitude of 8,000 kilometers, providing Ka-band services. A “LEO High” shell at about 1,200 kilometers will include 264 satellites with Ku- and Ka-band services. The system will also include 10 or more satellites in a “LEO Low” shell between 400 and 750 kilometers intended to support incubation of future technologies. "
and
- "The next step for IRIS² is a one-year design phase that will also include “consolidation” of the supply chain of contractors for the satellites. A critical design review is planned for early 2028, with launch of the satellites projected to take place in 2029 and 2030. The constellation will require 13 Ariane 64 launches, 10 for the LEO High shell and 3 for the MEO shell."
https://spacenews.com/europe-signs-contracts-for-iris%C2%B2-... ("Europe signs contracts for IRIS² constellation")
(Put together, you can constrain the mass of the satellites as <820 kg: for the LEO-High shell, 10 launches of A64, at a maximum of 21,650 kg each, divided by 264 units. That'd be intermediate between v1 and v2 Starlinks).
11B to launch 300 sats. Starlink costs SpaceX about $1M on the highest end for construction and launch per sat. True cost is likely lower by 20-30% for SpaceX and Starship will drop this further. Given the history of the EU, I think it's likely the environmental laws in will end up killing this before they can build a proper constellation, regardless of cost.
I think they got a bad deal.
I looked it up - Starlink plan s to eventually have 42,000 satellites. These are small and cheap, that's why so many are needed.
It seems likely that the EU is planning for a smaller number - perhaps much smaller - of more powerful satellites. So comparing costs like the probably doesn't make sense.
I think a better comparison would be the US department of defense starshield constellation, for which SpaceX was awarded approximately 1.8 billion to build.
I could not find much detail on the number and capabilities of the satellites, but they do launch alongside starlink.
However, it looks like the big money is in additional communication contract services, with up to 13 billion for the next 10 years [1]
https://www.satellitetoday.com/government-military/2024/11/2...
Starlink satellites are not small.
> Starlink satellite is roughly 260 kilograms. Iridium System satellite is 680 kilograms.
The current generation is v2 mini, which is ~740 kg. It's no smaller than Europe's IRIS2 concept (which are unknown, but can't be heavier than 820 kg—see my sibling comment).
(And just in case anyone's lost track: SpaceX has already launched over ten times more v2's than the entire (proposed) IRIS2. This is not a case of EU opting to do "fewer, but larger" satellites; they're simply just not competing in the same league).
> EU does nothing
HN: aha look at these losers they never do anything
> EU does thing
HN: aha look at these losers they're doing something we already did
Nobody has ever argued in the history of Hacker News that the government of the European Union does nothing.
The article also indicates this is for secure government comms rather than than public internet use; so it’s not exactly a competitor to Starlink. The interesting part is that it’s a small constellation numbering in the hundreds, which is an arrangement similar to Starlink, but not nearly at their existing scale or future ambition.
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I don't see anything wrong here. here's what could also happen, but has not:
> EU does thing the US hasn't
HN: OH SHIT USA NEEDS TO HURRY UP AND DO THING TOO
EU just needs to stop being behind technologically.
Hmm, like build a massive particle collider perhaps? Or, I dunno, fund a nuclear fusion reactor? Maybe find a weight loss drug that could solve obesity? Or, uh, create an mRNA vaccine to cure a pandemic? Maybe they could launch satellites to fly in the most accurate formation ever? Or build high speed rail networks to link their countries together? Nah that would all be stupid. USA number one amirite
The EU is great for science and research, but terrible for actually building anything.
The UK (although no longer part of the EU) is the homeplace of trains yet can no longer build train tracks.
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It's too bad that we cannot do this as a single global shared and provably neutral type of system. In the spirit of the US-USSR cooperation with Apollo-Soyuz. Most of the rival geo-navigation constellations operate on more or less the same frequencies and coordinate their chip codes. It works but it also raises the noise floor for everybody.
Honest question, but how do we as a society culturally align on who has the right to space in low Earth orbit?
I understand there are treaties that prevent ownership of space in general, but it seems like at some point you could reach such density of satellites that at best, it impairs function, and at worst creates potential collisions.
It's gonna be a long while until we reach that point. For comparison, there are roughly 10000 airplanes in the air at any given time in a 5 mile band above the surface and the skies are pretty clear outside of some congested airports. In orbit you have the advantage of 3D, where satellites can be in a band a few hundred miles thick. Unless someone goes and intentionally creates vast quantities of uncontrolled space junk I think LEO won't have too many issues.
1. Governments sit together in a room and design rules. This isn't happening and isn't happening anytime soon.
2. Common sense, first come first serve with big organisation (SpaceX, Amazon, China) communicating directly.
Why is the US so hostile against Europe lately?
Well.. Galileo was yelled at too for a very long time. But it got quite good in the end.
Why?
- Galileo HAS. Offers precision down to 30cm without additional correction data
- Also it offers crypto graphically signed navigation data (OSMNA) which basically eliminates spoofing attacks
Both for free.
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I wonder if Europeans view this as crony capitalism or getting fleeced?
As a European, I view this as preserving our strategic independence and wish we'd do more in more domains.
That's more or less what I suspected. I think it is fascinating to see the cultural differences on these topics. In the US, both parties of voters are extremely critical of such partnerships, claiming either corruption or waste.
Why do you think this is? Are the EU voters less price critical to spending? Are they simply more trusting?
I think it's related to our respective view of the State. As a French, I expect the State to do things for me and despite the State's too many failings, I have far more trust in the State than in corporations, so a States-led project in a strategic domain is a good thing. I don't wish the government (in its American meaning) to do less, I wish it to do better. It seems most people in the US view the State as a necessary evil and the worst entity to entrust their taxes with. Of course, things are more complicated and nuanced, but that's my bird's eye view.
It sounds like a big part of it is that despite the state handing huge sums of money to corporations, their is a belief in appropriate oversight.
what are you talking about? this is happening all the time in the US with Spacex+USGOV, Boeing+USGOV, etc.
The US government often takes the role of purchasing services and contracts, whereas the EU seems to favor more direct funding of corporate projects, like the one this article mentions, or the Airbus 380.
That said, I was talking about the sentiment around these activities, where much of the US is fairly hostile to the idea.
Pff bit of this bit of that. Trying to compete in the private market against SpaceX is questionable. The system isn't cutting edge and at best will be in the private market with massive subsidies.
Doing a huge constellation is 'in' but doing so when you can't even figure out how to design decent rocket doesn't make sense. We end up spending much more government money then the US ever did on Starlink, and we don't even get a decent rocket out of it.
In fact, Europe is massively subsidising Amazon, just so the Ariane 6 can pretend it has costumers. And then we will launch this constellation with Ariane 6 and then everybody will pat themselves on the back declaring their 'vision' as a great success.
Creating some LEO constellation for government and military maybe not a terrible idea.
But 10 billion is less then SpaceX paid for the complete Falcon 9 development and the initial version of the constellation. And the government maybe paid a few billion at best.
So we are paying 10x is more, for getting about 10% the value. And we will give a huge subsidy to Amazon as well. That just not really a great use of strategic resources.
I would prefer to first figure out some basic, change the structures, start small and use contractors that can actually deliver. I don't actually see an urgent need for a 10 billion $ LEO constellation right now. Maybe get the rockets right and iterate on the technology for a while.
Its like, Germany for example can't get the trains to run on time, the military is a complete basket case with many much bigger needs then secure LEO constellations, but LEO constellation is what every 'great' power must have. Sending old military equipment to Ukraine is to hard, lets slow ball that, but copying Starlink so we can also have secure unhackable LEO constellation that is a huge priority.
I do think investing in critical infrastructure makes sense, but I don't have to be happy about how its actually done. So I don't really care about spending 10 billion. But the process of how decisions are made and how they are executed, is something I do care about.
For example, it was utterly embracing watching Arianespace bumble along looking like complete and utter buffoons for 10 years, embracing Europe on a global stage. And did anybody get taken to account for a complete and systematic mismanagement? Have those contractors suffered any consequences? Of course not, here is another 500 million $ go and do a research project about the basics of reusable rockets.