The EU should not compete with Musk

Instead of trying to develop a rival to Elon Musk’s Starlink, the European Union should build a spy satellite network with a similar budget – says one expert on the topic.

The European Union is looking to spend billions unnecessarily on the IRIS2 program, which is meant to be a rival to the Starlink global communication system. Instead, it should invest in areas where Elon Musk’s company, a South African-born American technology billionaire, has less of an advantage,” said Rafal Modrzewski, the CEO of a Finnish satellite company, to Politico’s Brussels news portal.

Modrzewski believes that the EU is trying to do something new in an old-fashioned way, when the same amount could be spent on building a military-grade satellite surveillance network. This would provide independence for the continent from the United States in an important area, argues the expert. Musk’s company received a $1.8 billion contract from the Pentagon to develop the Starshield system, consisting of hundreds of spy satellites.

Establishing a surveillance network of approximately one hundred satellites would cost around two to three billion euros. Currently, 2.4 billion euros are allocated to the IRIS2 program in the EU budget.

Such a program would not only be useful from a military and intelligence perspective, but could also assist emergency response agencies.

Modrzewski knows what he’s talking about. His company, ICEYE, has over thirty observation satellites. Originally built for observing Arctic ice, they quickly realized that

the technology’s potential applications are much broader.

After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Ukraine crowdfunded the purchase of one of ICEYE’s satellites and access to the database of other satellites, enabling the Ukrainian military to target literally thousands of military objectives – as indicated by Serhiy Pritula, a former television host whose foundation organized the fundraising.

The technology is already being used by numerous companies and governments, and the uniqueness of ICEYE’s satellites lies in their size: each weighing less than a hundred kilograms.

Earlier this year, European Commissioner Thierry Breton also spoke at a professional conference about the need for an EU-level satellite observation program, but it is not yet known whether this will be included in the budget for the next seven years.