Ukraine may join the European satellite communication network IRIS²

European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius said that Ukraine, the UK and Norway could join the EU's IRIS² satellite program, which is being developed as an alternative to the American Starlink service, Euractiv reported.

Norway is currently negotiating with the European Commission to participate in the program. Iceland, which is also not a member of the EU, completed similar negotiations in early July. The United Kingdom and Ukraine, in turn, have not yet officially started accession negotiations.

"I would not be opposed," Kubilius said when asked if non-EU countries could officially join the multi-billion-euro space program.

The Commissioner noted the potential of Ukraine and the United Kingdom in the space program: Ukraine as a former important space center during the Soviet era, and the United Kingdom as a country with established experience in the space industry.

In the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Kyiv is actively using SpaceX services for military communications, which is causing concern in Europe given the Starlink monopoly on the satellite telecommunications market. The IRIS² project, which involves the launch of about 280 satellites and is estimated at €10.6 billion, could change the balance in the field of space communications. The network is expected to be operational in the 2030s.

The draft EU law on the space program was submitted by the European Commission on June 25 and is currently under active internal negotiations on its future application. The adoption of the draft law will take several years, but in the future it may limit the access of foreign space companies, including SpaceX, to the European market. The European Commissioner noted that the American side has not yet made any statements on this initiative.

By the way, recently, a large-scale failure of the Starlink satellite internet was recorded on the Ukrainian front, as well as around the world. SpaceX later reported that the cause of the failure was a software update on ground computing clusters, which overloaded the network, leading to the failure of key services.