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    HomeNewsEU announces new €6 billion satellite system to close digital divide

    EU announces new €6 billion satellite system to close digital divide

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    Also launches plans to manage space traffic due to “the exponential increase in the number of satellites”

    The European Union announced two space initiatives. First, a new satellite system, or as the EU puts plans “for a Regulation on a space-based secure connectivity”.

    The total cost is estimated at €6 billion. The Union’s contribution to the Programme from 2022 until 2027 is €2.4 billion at current prices. The funding will come from different sources of the public sector (EU budget, Member States, European Space Agency’s (ESA) contributions) and private sector investments.

    On the upside

    The EU argues that the development of a new infrastructure would provide a gross value added of between €17 billion and €24 billion, plus additional jobs in the European space industry.

    It said in a statement, “Today’s initiatives will help safeguard the efficiency and security of our current assets while developing European cutting-edge space technology to the benefit of our citizens and economy”.

    The thing is, satellite systems take years from conception to operation and in the meantime, many other satellite systems are closer to the launchpad. For example, last November the UK’s biggest telco BT, signed up the UK-based satellite operator OneWeb for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) network and connectivity services.

    OneWeb is expected to deliver global coverage by June 2022 through a constellation of 648 LEO satellites and is poised to deliver services from the North Pole to the 50th parallel, covering the entire UK, later this year.

    Brexit spurring the EU on?

    Could there be a Brexit angle here? In 2020, the British government rather surprisingly bought a 45% stake in the bankrupt satellite operator which was much derided as being a poor decision: Bleddyn Bowen, a space policy expert at the University of Leicester, didn’t mince his words when speaking to The Guardian newspaper.

    He said the UK had bought the “wrong” satellites: “OneWeb is working on basically the same idea as Elon Musk’s Starlink – a mega-constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit which are used to connect people on the ground to the internet”.

    As Kester Mann of CCS Insights wrote in a blog last October entitled, Satellite broadband: pet project or solution to digital inclusion?, “Eventually, [satellite connectivity] could revolutionise the way hundreds of millions of people communicate, but satellite broadband has a chequered history including spectacular failures that send a warning to today’s hopefuls intending to stump up vast sums with no guarantee of a return on investment.”

    Indeed, although the EU always has the pubic purse to dig into.

    Through the new proposed EU satellite system, the European Commission plans to:
    • ensure the long-term availability of worldwide uninterrupted access to secure and cost-effective satellite communication services. It will support the protection of critical infrastructures, surveillance, external actions, crisis management and applications that are critical for Member States’ economy, security and defence;
    • allow for the provision of commercial services by the private sector that can enable access to advanced, reliable and fast connections to citizens and businesses across Europe, including in communication dead zones ensuring cohesion across Member States. This is one of the targets of the proposed 2030 Digital Decade. The system will also provide connectivity over geographical areas of strategic interest, for instance Africa and the Arctic, as part of the EU Global Gateway strategy.

    Managing space traffic

    Secondly, without any discernible whiff of irony, the EU stated that, “in response to an exponential increase in the number of satellites”, the EU has issued a Joint Communication on an EU approach on Space Traffic Management (STM). and proposes to make space traffic management a public policy issue.

    It seeks to develop “concrete initiatives” such as operations and legislation to promote the safe, secure and sustainable use of space while preserving the EU’s strategic autonomy and industry‘s competitiveness.

    The EU approach focuses on four elements:
    * Assessing the STM requirements civilians and the military and impacts on the EU
    * Strengthening technological capability to identify and track spacecraft and space debris
    * Setting out the appropriate legislative framework
    * Establishing international partnerships on STM and engaging at a multilateral level.