Iris 2 risks collapse
July 17, 2024
By Chris Forrester
The IRIS2 consortium, which is seeking to build a satellite mega-constellation on behalf of the European Commission, looks as if it is on the verge of collapse.
French newspaper La Tribune says that due to risk assessment, Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Space, the subsidiaries of the two European aerospace giants, have sent a letter to the satellite operators (SES, Eutelsat and Hispasat) to propose that they withdraw from the SpaceRISE consortium.
The report says that Thales and Airbus “do not want to abandon this project in which they believe” which suggests that they wish to remain as suppliers and major contractors for the scheme.
“We have proposed to withdraw from the consortium,” La Tribune has been told. In this letter, the subsidiaries of Airbus and Thales explain that they considered that the project was far too risky.
The anxieties now are that the project is on the verge of collapsing.
Prof. Dr. Susanne Auer-Mayer, a researcher at the Institute for Austrian and European Labour Law, in Vienna, Austria, in a Tweet on X, reminded readers that Airbus and Thales are in “preliminary discussions with a view to a possible merger of some of their space activities”. She added that in her view, Airbus and Thales would prefer to be just building the project’s hardware. “I’m hearing that other consortium members have also backed away in recent weeks. Essentially the consortium and with it IRIS² as a whole is falling apart.”
It has been widely reported that Germany is not keen on IRIS2.
Satellite operator SES is also said to be having second thoughts. SES is in the process of acquiring Intelsat for some $3.1 billion, and this commitment might make an investment in IRIS2 a challenge.
Were Thales Alenia and Airbus Space to exit the financing portion of IRIS2, this would leave – currently – SES, Eutelsat, Hispasat, Deutsch Telekom, Hisdesat, OHB, Orange and Telespazio as key members of the consortium.