For years, Europe’s plan for its own satellite constellation was mostly a matter of documents: regulations, budgets, consortium agreements and debates over whether the continent could afford to build an alternative to Starlink. This month, it began to look more like hardware.
In the space of a few weeks, the European Union and its industrial partners confirmed a reinforced design for IRIS², signed contracts for hundreds of satellite platforms and payloads, and launched eighteen projects to test new services in very low orbit. RCR Wireless reported that the programme’s overall cost now stands at about €15.6 billion.
IRIS² is not an IoT network. Its first job is secure communications for governments, defence and emergency services. But parts of the programme touch directly on connected devices, including direct-to-device links and secure IoT, and its design choices will shape which satellite options European industry has in the 2030s.
What IRIS² Is
IRIS² stands for Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite. The EU adopted the programme in 2023, and in December 2024 the European Commission signed a twelve-year concession contract with SpaceRISE, a consortium of the satellite operators SES, Eutelsat and Hispasat, to build and operate it.
A Sovereign Network
The central idea is sovereignty. European governments currently rely on a mix of national military satellites and commercial providers, some of them from outside Europe, for secure communications. The war in Ukraine, where commercial satellite broadband became part of military and civil communications, sharpened concerns about depending on providers that European governments do not control.
IRIS² is meant to give EU institutions and member states secure connectivity for diplomatic networks, defence, border surveillance, crisis response and critical infrastructure, on infrastructure that is European-built and European-operated. RCR Wireless noted that the programme is explicitly not designed to compete with Starlink for consumers.
Public Money, Private Operators
When the contract was signed in 2024, Brussels committed about €6 billion, private partners over €4 billion and the European Space Agency roughly €550 million, spread across the twelve-year concession. The private partners are expected to sell commercial services using capacity not needed by governments, which helps fund the system.
What Changed This Summer
IRIS² has been through a period of renegotiation, and the result is a larger and faster programme.
A Reinforced Design
On 7 August 2026, the Commission and SpaceRISE agreed on what the Commission described as accelerating and reinforcing IRIS², following negotiations that began in January. The constellation now totals 348 satellites: 330 in higher low Earth orbit and 18 in medium Earth orbit. That includes an additional advanced defence set of 66 satellites in low orbit.
According to the Commission, governments will get 60% more secure capacity over EU territory than under the earlier plan, and 54% more across the globe. The first satellites should now go up in 2029, earlier than planned, with initial services following shortly after.
Two Orbits, Two Jobs
The two orbital layers do different work. The medium Earth orbit satellites, led by SES, sit higher and can cover wide areas with fewer spacecraft. The low Earth orbit satellites, led by Eutelsat, fly closer to the ground, which reduces delay and suits applications that need faster response times. Combining the two gives the network both reach and responsiveness.
Who Is Building It
The industrial contracts give the clearest picture of how IRIS² will be built.
The Low Orbit Satellites
According to European Spaceflight’s report on the contracts, Belgian company Aerospacelab won a €2.4 billion contract to build 264 satellite platforms carrying dual Ku- and Ka-band payloads, with launches expected to begin in 2030. Airbus Defence and Space will build 66 platforms with Ka-band payloads for the first layer, due in 2029.
Every one of the 330 low orbit satellites will carry a secure government payload built by Thales Alenia Space. Its initial order is worth about €500 million, with the full contract expected to exceed €3 billion.
The Aerospacelab award is notable. The company is younger and smaller than Europe’s established satellite makers, and a contract of this size is a large vote of confidence in a relatively new manufacturer. It reflects a push to build satellites in larger numbers and at lower cost, closer to the production model SpaceX uses for Starlink.
The Medium Orbit And Ground Segment
German manufacturer OHB will build the 18 medium Earth orbit platforms under a contract worth about €1 billion. Hispasat leads the ground segment, including antennas and control systems, with contracts reported at more than €1.6 billion.
European Rockets
The satellites must fly on European launchers, chiefly Ariane 6. Keeping SpaceX out of the launch plan fits the programme’s purpose of independence but adds schedule risk, since Europe’s launch capacity is limited and Ariane 6 flies far less often than Falcon 9.
Where IoT Comes In
For IoT readers, the most interesting part of IRIS² is not the main constellation but an experimental layer beneath it.
The Low-LEO Layer
On 17 September 2026, the European Space Agency signed eighteen consolidation contracts worth a total of €20 million, involving nearly 80 companies, to prepare a so-called Low-LEO layer. These satellites would fly lower than the main constellation, below about 750 kilometres.
ESA described the purpose as providing “a rapid and recurrent mechanism for validating new potential governmental services and associated mission concepts in orbit at pre-operational level.” In plain terms, it is a testbed: a way to try new services in space, with real users, before deciding whether to build them into future versions of IRIS².
Laurent Jaffart, ESA’s director of resilience, navigation and connectivity, said: “Space is evolving rapidly, and Europe needs to evolve with it. Low-LEO provides the opportunity to explore new ideas and capabilities, test them in practice and learn from the results.”
Implementation contracts are planned between 2027 and 2029.
IoT Companies On The List
Several of the selected projects involve companies with a background in satellite IoT. Among the participants named by RCR Wireless are Kinéis, the French operator of a 25-satellite constellation for low-power IoT, and Sateliot, a Spanish company running satellites based on 3GPP standards for NB-IoT.
Sateliot’s project, called RESCUE-NET, studies direct-to-device and secure IoT connectivity using standards-based non-terrestrial network technology for European government users, TelecomTV reported. Sateliot’s current satellites support NB-IoT devices with store-and-forward connectivity, and its next-generation satellites, planned for 2027, are designed to offer 5G direct-to-device access. Jaume Sanpera, Sateliot’s chief executive, said the selection “helps consolidating the architecture.”
Kinéis is known for tracking and monitoring devices that send small messages from remote places, including wildlife tags, maritime beacons and industrial sensors. Its involvement points to the kind of low-data, wide-area services that IRIS² could eventually support for governments, such as monitoring critical infrastructure or tracking emergency equipment.
Services Being Explored
RCR Wireless listed direct-to-device, IoT services and drone communications among the applications planned for the low orbit layer, alongside secure broadband, maritime and aviation services and quantum communications. ESA’s own list puts government broadband first, followed by services for ships and aircraft and for relaying data and instructions between spacecraft.
Why This Matters For IoT In Europe
Even though IRIS² serves governments first, it could affect the wider IoT market in several ways.
Critical Infrastructure Monitoring
Governments and utilities operate large numbers of connected devices in places that matter for national resilience: power grids, pipelines, water systems, border areas, ports and rail networks. Many of these sites are remote, and terrestrial networks can fail in exactly the situations where monitoring matters most, such as storms, floods or attacks. A secure, government-controlled satellite layer offers a backup path for the most sensitive of these systems. We looked at how industrial operators connect remote assets in our explainer on industrial IoT and industrial connectivity.
A Home For European Satellite IoT Firms
Europe has a cluster of small satellite IoT companies, including Kinéis, Sateliot and others, that compete with much larger US players. Participating in IRIS² projects gives them funding, government users and a route into a long-term programme. For device makers and operators in Europe, a stronger domestic satellite IoT sector means more choice.
Standards-Based Connectivity
The emphasis on 3GPP-based non-terrestrial networks in projects like RESCUE-NET is also significant. If IRIS² services for devices are built on the same standards as mobile networks, equipment designed for terrestrial NB-IoT or 5G could in future connect to them, rather than requiring special terminals. We explained the low-power standards involved in our guide to the networks built to whisper.
Commercial Capacity
The SpaceRISE operators are expected to sell capacity that governments do not use. How much of that capacity will be available for commercial IoT, and on what terms, has not been set out publicly. For now, it is safest to treat IRIS² as a government system with possible commercial spillover, rather than as a new IoT network.
How IRIS² Fits With Europe’s Other Satellite Moves
IRIS² is one of several efforts to strengthen Europe’s position in satellite connectivity.
Eutelsat, which leads the low orbit segment, already operates the OneWeb constellation and, according to RCR Wireless, is buying 229 additional OneWeb satellites, which gives Europe some sovereign low orbit capacity before IRIS² launches. Separately, Europe’s largest mobile operators, including Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone, are in early talks about a joint bid for EU-controlled 2 GHz mobile satellite spectrum to build a European direct-to-device service, according to RCR Wireless. That effort is distinct from IRIS².
These moves share a goal: reducing Europe’s dependence on non-European providers such as SpaceX and Amazon for connectivity that governments, industry and citizens increasingly rely on.
The Risks
Large public space programmes have a mixed record on cost and schedule, and IRIS² faces real challenges.
Timeline Pressure
First launches in 2029 and a second layer in 2030 leave little margin. The programme depends on several manufacturers delivering on time, European launch capacity being available and ground systems being ready. Any delay would widen the gap with commercial competitors that are already operating.
Cost
At about €15.6 billion, IRIS² is one of the largest space investments in the EU’s history. Critics have questioned whether it can deliver value comparable to commercial systems that are already in orbit and growing quickly. The programme’s supporters argue that sovereignty and security justify the cost in a way that commercial comparisons do not capture.
Scale
With 348 satellites in its core design, IRIS² is far smaller than Starlink, which had more than 11,000 satellites by late summer 2026. It is designed for secure government use rather than mass-market broadband, so the comparison is not direct. But it does limit how much capacity will be left for commercial services.
What IoT Teams Should Watch
For companies building or operating connected devices in Europe, IRIS² is a long-term factor rather than an immediate option. A few developments are worth following.
The Low-LEO projects will show whether direct-to-device and IoT services become a real part of the programme. Results from the consolidation phase and the implementation contracts from 2027 onwards will be the first signals.
The commercial terms offered by the SpaceRISE operators will decide whether any IRIS² capacity reaches private IoT users.
The standards chosen for device connectivity will determine whether ordinary cellular IoT modules can use the network or whether dedicated hardware will be needed.
Public sector procurement rules may also change. Governments and critical infrastructure operators may come to prefer, or be required to use, sovereign connectivity for sensitive systems, which could affect suppliers of IoT equipment and services to those customers.
From Blueprint To Hardware
IRIS² has moved from policy to procurement. Contracts are signed, satellite makers are chosen and launch dates are set. The system that emerges will be a secure network for European governments first and foremost.
For the IoT industry, its most important contribution may come from the experimental low orbit layer, where companies like Kinéis and Sateliot are testing how secure, standards-based satellite links for devices could work. Whether those experiments become services will be decided over the rest of the decade.
