spacetoday.net: European Parliament approves satellite constellation proposal

Posted: Sat, Feb 18, 2023, 9:40 AM ET (1440 GMT)
The European Parliament has approved a proposed satellite connectivity constellation. The parliament passed a regulation this week for the Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite, or IRIS2, constellation by a vote of 603-6. The vote clears the way for manufacturers to submit bids to build, launch and deploy the multi-orbit network by 2027, with a projected cost of 6 billion euros ($6.4 billion.) IRIS2 comes in response to US-based Starlink's growing dominance in low Earth orbit communications, and a need to protect infrastructure against increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity threats.