As Russia begins deploying its military RASSVET constellation, internal political fractures and slow-moving bureaucracy are leaving Europe completely reliant on the U.S. for security in orbit. And things won’t change anytime soon.
Marc C Lange has been following with concern the events surrounding the attempted drone attack on a Ukrainian military plane at the Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany in August this year. The Berlin-based defense advisor sees these escalating hybrid attacks from Russia as a portent of worse things to come. The incident, since attributed to Russian and Belarusian saboteurs, prompted German politicians to close the Russian consulate in Bonn. Russia denied involvement, calling allegations “absurd” and warned of diplomatic consequences.
Explore the October/November 2026 Issue
Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.
A string of other suspicious incidents across Europe quickly followed, including unexplained fires at a military robotics factory in Estonia and a drone manufacturing facility in Poland.
“There are signs that Russia may want to escalate in the next 12 months,” Lange, who is also the author of the Tech Wars newsletter, tells Via Satellite. “There’s a clock ticking for Vladimir Putin to do it. The risk of Russia starting a military operation against Europe has never been greater, and the evidence is raining down on us.”
Lange is most concerned about the fact that despite lofty talk about defense investment, Europe doesn’t seem to be in a rush to close its strategic defense and security technology gaps. This vulnerability, in particular, involves strategic infrastructure in space.
“If somebody east of [Germany] decides to launch a ballistic missile at us, we will not see it unless the United States passes on the intelligence data,” Lange says. “We rely on the U.S. for a lot of these things, and so does Ukraine.”
It’s not just the American Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) for early missile warning that Europe needs for its security. When the chief of German military space command Maj. Gen. Michael Traut revealed in February that Russian spy satellites had been eavesdropping on about a dozen European strategic communication spacecraft in Geostationary Orbit (GEO), he knew about the activity only thanks to American space situational awareness providers.
According to the Secure World Foundation’s 2026 Global Counterspace Capabilities Report, both Europe’s defensive and offensive space architecture, lags behind not only the U.S. and China, but also its primary adversary, Russia. That includes electronic warfare systems, such as jammers and spoofers, directed energy weapons such as lasers, and a new generation of co-orbital systems that involve offensive satellites carrying various kinds of interceptors or disruptive systems.
For Lange, the biggest concern at the moment is Ukraine’s dependence on SpaceX’s Starlink megaconstellation for guiding drones around the war zone and for long-range strikes on targets in Russia. No space-based system available in Europe currently supports drone warfare, meaning Europe has nothing to offer Ukraine should it lose access to Starlink in the future.
“Ukraine’s deep strike campaign is running on American intelligence data and Starlink terminals,” says Lange. “The moment one or both of these assets are not available to Ukraine anymore, that campaign ends.”
Russia, too, used to rely on Starlink terminals to guide drones deeper into Ukrainian territory. But earlier this year in February, SpaceX agreed to a registration scheme that allows Ukraine to limit who can use Starlink on its territory, including regions in the east that are currently under Russian control.
The sudden loss of access to Starlink was a setback for Russia, which it is still scrambling to overcome. But Lange warns that Russia’s determination to deploy a domestic military space constellation that would take over the role of Starlink in drone and robotic warfare is vastly outpacing Europe’s efforts to have its own back-up in place. If Russia were to invade an EU country, as many analysts think it might before 2030, it would certainly lean onto the drone and robotic warfare technology that it has perfected during the conflict in Ukraine. The ability to use its own satellites to guide those strikes would give Moscow a distinct advantage. And Moscow certainly knows that.
While Europe is still three years away from the launch of the first batch of satellites for the IRIS² constellation, Russia began launching its RASSVET fleet in March this year and reports cite it already has 32 satellites in orbit. Ukrainian defense intelligence sources told the military intelligence platform Janes that by late July, Russia had been able to use its new satellites to beam connectivity to Ukrainian territory for at least several hours a day. This connectivity could soon provide links to guide drones beyond the reach of standard radio control, possibly hundreds or even thousands of kilometers into the unoccupied lands.
“My impression is that Russia has fully understood the existential necessity of RASSVET,” says Lange.
Despite negative news reports that have recently flagged the problems plaguing RASSVET satellites in orbit, Lange is convinced that Moscow has what it takes to pull the project off.
“If Russia is good at one thing, it is persistence,” he says. “I do not have any doubt that they’re going to continue to build out this capability.”
Samuel Bendett, an analyst at the Center for Naval Research (CNA) who specializes in Russian military technology, tells Via Satellite that Russia sees Rassvet as “a matter of life and death,” with many voices inside the country being highly critical of the past reliance on Starlink.
“They have been developing plans for Rassvet since around 2021,” Bendett notes. “Their original plan was to launch 156 satellites by the end of this year, which is probably not going to happen, and nearly 300 by the end of 2027. They plan to have over 600 satellites in orbit by the end of 2028 and 900 by 2035.”
Bendett stresses that although Russia may be dealing with technical problems and is unlikely to get satellites operational at the projected pace, even a much lower number of spacecraft will provide coverage not just over Ukraine, but over the adjacent territories in Poland and the Baltic states, which are the likeliest target of a future Russian aggression.
Contrast that with Europe. In August, the European Commission announced it was “accelerating” the deployment of IRIS2, with first launches now expected in 2029 (from the initially planned 2030). The Commission also decided to expand the constellation from the originally planned 282 to a total of 348 spacecraft. The constellation might be fully deployed between 2031 and 2032, yet many insiders see this timeline as far too optimistic.
Contracts to build the constellations’ satellites were awarded last month to AerospaceLab and Airbus. AerospaceLab, a newcomer in the field, will produce 264 out of the 348 spacecraft at a cost of around 9.1 million euro ($10.5 million) per satellite, according to Reuters. The company has reportedly built eight satellites for various clients since its conception in 2018. It is currently constructing a satellite “mega-factory” in Charleroi, Belgium.
The fact that the European Commission entrusted a single company, and a relative newcomer, with such a major share of the constellation, in Lange’s eyes, raises concerns. But there are other aspects of the IRIS2 endeavor that suggest Europe may be failing to adapt.
“With IRIS2, the EU is simultaneously trying to do too much and missing the mark on some core important factors,” he says. “This thing reeks of complexity. These satellites contain multiple different communication payloads, PNT payloads, and optional governmental payloads. Europe has decided to go for complex and fancy, and what I would describe as over-engineered. But imagine you were to offer it to Ukraine today? Tell them you can offer them a constellation, it’s super fancy and sophisticated, but it might not be ready before 2035?”
When confronted with the criticism, the European Commission spokesperson told Via Satellite in an email that “Europe is not waiting” and reiterated that the Commission is “accelerating IRIS² and expanding it to 350 satellites, with first launches from 2029.” They stated that IRIS² will boost EU secure government capacity by 60 percent for defense, security and emergency services.”
Eutelsat, one of the members of the SpaceRise consortium responsible for the IRIS2, tells Via Satellite that the company is “investing in the renewal and enhancement of the OneWeb Low-Earth-Orbit satellite network” which will serve as “a component of IRIS2.”
“Secure European LEO connectivity is available now, with further capacity and capabilities being built for the future,” the spokesperson says.
The OneWeb constellation currently cannot support drone and ground robot operations due to limited capacity and lack of compact satellite terminals.
A spokesperson for Aerospacelab, which will manufacture the bulk of the IRIS2 spacecraft, tells Via Satellite that the construction of its satellite megafactory will conclude by the end of this year, and that the young and agile company hopes to “inject industrial execution speed” into the program. “We don’t carry the weight of legacy organizational structures that can slow down execution on a program of this scale,” the spokesperson said.
The selection of Aerospacelab marks “a strong signal, a real shift as the European space ecosystem is now opening up to new industrial models to meet the challenges of sovereignty and competitiveness against existing mega-constellations,” the spokesperson said. “The consortium made a deliberate bet that industrial agility and the ability to manufacture at scale are no longer the exclusive domain of legacy primes.”
In the meantime, SpaceX has already launched around 245 Starshield satellites for the U.S. government, adapted from Starlink with additional capabilities. On top of that, the U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA) is building up the ultra-secure Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) constellation, with 60 satellites already in orbit. The SDA expects to have at least 300 PWSA satellites in orbit by 2029. China’s Guowang and Qianfan constellations, which currently have 196 and 238 satellites in orbit, according to Orbital Radar, are both designed with dual use in mind.
Still, at the recent International Space Summit in France, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said that when it comes to its position in the international space race, “Europe begins from a position of strength.”
Agnieszka Lukaszczyk, space policy and security analyst at hiALtitude Consulting, says that comparing the EU — a politically complex alliance of 27 countries burdened with red tape and bureaucracy — with a totalitarian (but rather effective in decision-making) regime like Russia or a commercial company like SpaceX may be unfair. Yet, she admits that Europe’s position appears rather vulnerable.
“Europe has nothing to offer itself, and it’s very scary that in a situation like that, you’re dependent on literally one man’s mood,” she tells Via Satellite (referring to SpaceX’s controversial CEO Elon Musk).
She adds that Europe, in fact, has a track record of developing overdue, overly complex space projects. So far, however, it has been getting away with it as the continent’s security wasn’t at stake.
“The IRIS2 satellites are just being designed,” she says. “They are supposed to be a lot more complex and larger than Starlink, with greater capabilities than Starlink. But in reality, by the time these satellites get launched, they may be old technology anyway, because Starlink is going to leap a couple of generations ahead. This is where we are likely to lose because we don’t have speed.”
Lukaszczyk is a native of Poland, one of the countries closest to the drama in Ukraine, which is also among the likeliest targets of a future Russian aggression, and so, the threat feels real. Earlier this year, Poland committed 656 million euro ($748 million) to IRIS2 on top of the mandatory contributions, joining Hungary and Spain, which had promised additional funding earlier.
Not every country, however, is that keen on IRIS2, notes Lukaszczyk. Germany, the biggest contributor to the overall EU budget, has been having second thoughts for a while and wants to build its own secure Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) communication constellation. The constellation of up to 200 satellites will complement the existing GEO SatcomBw assets operated by the German Bundeswehr.
The 10-billion-euro fleet, expected to launch around 2030, would provide high-bandwidth connectivity to drones, ships, tanks and troops on the ground.
“There are still questions whether IRIS2 is really going to launch and whether there is going to be enough funding for it,” says Lukaszczyk. “The fact that Germany is quite critical of IRIS2 and building its own thing is quite a big deal and quite a big blow to IRIS2.”
Juliana Süß, a space security researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, lists additional pain points of European space defense sovereignty.
Despite the recent excitement around the successful debut flight of Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket, Europe is nowhere near on track to be able to launch all its missing satellite infrastructure on European rockets. The heavy-lift Ariane 6 has only completed 9 flights since its debut in 2024 and is nowhere near on track to scale to the level needed to cut the current dependence on SpaceX. Small launchers, such as Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum, are barely going to make a dent in the demand.
“We need to be able to get the missing infrastructure in orbit quickly enough, and we essentially don’t have much [capacity] at the moment,” Süß told Via Satellite.
The same goes for tactical space situational awareness, space-based intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance assets, and the early missile warning, discussed by Lange.
Projects do exist, at least on paper, but the analysts say there is little visibility into the actual progress of these developments.
In the meantime, the European Commission continues its tradition of lofty rhetoric with snail-paced practical follow-up. In October last year, the Commission introduced the concept of the European Space Shield, a vaguely defined infrastructure plan to “reinforce the defense capabilities of EU member States and to secure the resilience and protection of space assets” in response to activities of Europe’s adversaries.
Details of the new program were promised for 2026 but as of mid-September, nothing has materialized. The European Commission declined to answer Via Satellite’s questions on that topic.
The analysts say that not much is known about the program, and according to a speech made by the European Commissioner for Defense and Space Andrius Kubilius in July, funds for the Space Shield won’t be available before the next Multiannual Financial Framework starts in 2028.
In a post on LinkedIn published on September 28, Kubilius acknowledged that Europe has “critical capability gaps” in its defence systems including in air and missile defence, space-based capabilities and drone and antidrone systems. He said in the post that the EU will be pooling resources and expertise with a combined funding ambition of around 190 billion euro ($216 billion) by 2036.” VS
