Airbus has put together a consortium of German companies to develop a sovereign intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) solution.
The team announced Wednesday during the Berlin Air Show includes Rohde & Schwarz, thermal intelligence startup constellr, Orbint, and High Performance Space Structure Systems (HPS). Airbus will be responsible for overall mission and system architecture, end-to-end integration, programme management, and the customer interface.
Together, the partners cover the full Earth Observation value chain including multi-sensor tasking, collection, processing, exploitation and dissemination. Capabilities include RF-sensors, electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR), synthetic aperture radar (SAR)-derived products, and geospatial intelligence services.
According to the June 10 announcement, the parties are working together on a non-exclusive basis. Airbus did not specify a specific system architecture or government contract that the consortium will target.
“Europe has the talent, the technology, and the industrial base to build its own space intelligence infrastructure and the strategic imperative to do so,” said Mike Schöllhorn, CEO of Airbus Defence and Space. “This consortium brings together five German companies whose capabilities are genuinely complementary. Together we can deliver a sovereign, end-to-end solution that no single company could offer alone.”
Germany has pledged to invest 35 billion euro ($41 billion) in space defense capabilities by 2030.
“Together, we can help shape a sovereign European ISR capability that is technologically strong, resilient, and independent,” commented Thomas Bohne, vice president of SIGINT / EW, for Rohde & Schwarz.
