IRIS² signing day on Dec 16
December 13, 2024
By Chris Forrester
The European Commission and European Space Agency (ESA) are hosting a series of events in Brussels on December 16th connected with the IRIS2 satellite scheme.
First there will be technical briefing with senior EC experts and Josef Aschbacher, ESA Director General, as well as Laurent Jaffart, ESA Director of Connectivity and Secure Communications.
IRIS² is the scheme for a highly secure Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite.
The technical briefing will be followed by various speeches and the contract signing ceremony by EU Commissioner Andrius Kubilius, in the presence of ESA DG Josef Aschbacher, and senior representatives of the SpaceRISE Industry consortium, lead by SES.
The IRIS² Satellite Constellation is the European Union’s third flagship, addressing long-term challenges of EU’s security, safety and resilience by offering enhanced connectivity services to governmental users. ESA is the technical implementing agency for IRIS², in particular with the experts of the ESA Directorate of Connectivity and Secure Communications (CSC), lead by Laurent Jaffart.
The first contract shall be signed by the European Commission and ESA. The second contract will be between ESA and the industrial consortium SpaceRISE that is led by European satellite operators SES, Eutelsat and Hispasat, and includes satellite manufacturers Airbus and Thales Alenia Space.