SES awarded a contract to OHB to manufacture 18 Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites for Europe’s IRIS² constellation in a deal announced Monday. OHB said the contract is worth nearly 1 billion euro ($1.16 billion).
This is the first major contract awarded under the IRIS² concession.
OHB said the satellites will have a power output of approximately 15 kilowatts and a launch mass of about 2.6 metric tons. The launch of the first satellites is planned for 2029, with initial services expected to become available in 2030.
IRIS² is planned to be Europe’s third flagship space program after Galileo and Copernicus, with 348 satellites total in MEO and Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) to provide secure connectivity services to the EU and its member states, along with broadband connectivity.
German satellite manufacturer OHB also contributed extensively to both Galileo and Copernicus. OHB CEO Marco Fuchs commented this contract further expands the company’s role “in Europe’s strategic space infrastructure.”
“IRIS² will mark another significant step toward Europe’s independence. In an increasingly digital and highly mobile world, a resilient and autonomous communication infrastructure is indispensable,” Fuchs said in a statement.
SES, Eutelsat, and Hispasat are leading the constellation development. OHB has been a key technology partner of the SpaceRISE consortium.
SES will design, build, and test the payloads for the constellation program’s MEO satellites. As the program is a public/private partnership, SES expects to commit up to 1.35 billion euro to the program, and SES will be able to sell approximately 90% of the MEO capacity, the operator said in a recent statement.
“As the company responsible for the delivery of the IRIS² MEO segment within SpaceRISE, SES is pleased to work with OHB on the development of these eighteen satellite platforms. This contract represents an important step towards delivering Europe’s next generation of secure and resilient communication infrastructure,” commented Xavier Bertran, chief product and innovation officer at SES.
The IRIS² constellation was initially targeted as 290 satellites but additional LEO satellites have been added. Eutelsat recently stated there will be 330 LEO satellites — 264 dual Mil-Ka/Ku band satellites and 66 Mil-Ka band satellites.
