The EU has fleshed out its core demands as regards the tender process for its proposed IRIS2 super-constellation of satellites.

The European Commission (EC) issued its preliminary Request for Proposals on March 23rd and set a date for responses of April 26th. That date will slip (to July 31st) given the number of queries raised to the project’s managers.

However, the key elements as regards the constellation’s core demands include state-of-the-art “core cryptography” and the ability to safely and efficiently de-orbit craft either at the end of life or in case there are problems with a specific satellite.

Other essentials include proofs of financially robust backgrounds for bidders (at least €500 million in annual turnover for the previous 3 years) as well as being EU-domiciled.

There were questions regarding current news-flow and how certain events could impact the bidding process. One question concerned the current rumour regarding SES of Luxembourg and the gossip regarding a merger with Intelsat, despite Intelsat being formally a Luxembourg-domiciled business.

Another concerned Rivada Space Networks which is based in Germany and backed by an Irish entrepreneur but has as its formal owner being a US-domiciled business. Worse, for Rivada, is that it is a freshly financed business but has a near-zero track record as far as past trading is concerned.

The EC says it will provide further and greater detail on these and other questions by April 26th and will be contained in the full RfP issued in July.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Virgin Galactic in stock split
2. Thuraya-3 suffers major problem
3. AST SpaceMobile hit by Class Action
4. Optimism under threat at SES
5. Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ
6. Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case
7. SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers
8. IRIS2 already in trouble?
9. Intelsat contemplates next steps

Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite, Policy, Satellite

Tags: European Union, eutelsat, iris