Europe’s IRIS² secure-connectivity programme has moved from an implementation agreement into a major manufacturing order, with OHB signing a contract worth nearly €1 billion to build the 18 medium-Earth-orbit satellite platforms forming its higher-orbit layer.

German space group OHB will develop and produce the platforms for SES, which leads the medium-Earth-orbit part of IRIS² within the SpaceRISE consortium. SES is working alongside Eutelsat and Hispasat in the consortium selected to deliver the EU-backed communications network.

The contract is the first major industrial award made under the concession since the programme entered its implementation phase in August. That earlier milestone fixed more of the design, deployment timetable, economics, and division of responsibilities surrounding a planned 348-satellite constellation.

OHB’s 18 platforms will account for the entire medium-Earth-orbit component, alongside 330 satellites planned for low Earth orbit. Each OHB platform is expected to deliver maximum power of around 15 kilowatts and have a launch mass of roughly 2.6 tonnes, making the award a substantial engineering and manufacturing commitment rather than another design exercise.

IRIS² still requires secure ground infrastructure, launches, user terminals, control systems, and operating capacity before the constellation becomes a communications service. The manufacturing contract nevertheless starts turning the programme’s political ambition into orders that will shape Europe’s industrial supply chain.

Sovereignty becomes procurement

Techopia covered IRIS² in August as the programme moved from a sovereignty plan into implementation. The OHB award provides a different point in that process because spending is now determining which businesses build hardware and where the programme enters the European manufacturing base.

Brussels has framed IRIS² as infrastructure for secure government, defence, emergency-service, and commercial communications, particularly where terrestrial networks are unavailable or disrupted. Satellite connectivity has become more strategically sensitive as European governments examine dependence on privately controlled networks and seek communications systems whose security and operating priorities can be shaped domestically.

That objective does not make IRIS² a wholly state-operated network. The project uses a public-private structure in which commercial operators contribute capital and retain private-sector opportunities alongside government demand, while European institutions and industry divide responsibilities across deployment and operation.

OHB chief executive Marco Fuchs described IRIS² as “another significant step toward Europe’s independence”. Yet independence in this context depends on more than the nationality of the satellite manufacturer because electronics, launch capacity, terminals, ground systems, software, spectrum, skills, and long-term financing all contribute to whether the network remains resilient.

The contract fixes one part of the architecture

Although the main constellation contains many more low-orbit satellites, the 18 MEO spacecraft provide a distinct part of the multi-orbit design. Higher orbits can cover larger areas with fewer spacecraft, while lower-orbit satellites can deliver lower latency, allowing the network to combine different characteristics instead of relying on a single orbital layer.

SES already operates medium-orbit connectivity through its O3b systems, which helps explain its responsibility for the IRIS² MEO segment and parts of the associated user and operating infrastructure. The OHB order now gives greater certainty around who will build that layer.

Considerable execution risk nevertheless remains. Engineering designs have to reach production, suppliers must deliver specialist components, launch capacity has to be available on schedule, and secure ground infrastructure must arrive in parallel if the satellites are to provide useful services rather than simply reach orbit.

European space programmes also sit inside industrial policy, where major contracts are expected to sustain capability across a broader supplier base. How far the IRIS² order book reaches into SMEs, specialist manufacturers, and newer space companies will become another measure of whether the programme expands industrial capacity beyond its largest contractors.

Secure connectivity has to compete as a service

Demand for resilient communications extends beyond central government because utilities, transport operators, defence suppliers, emergency services, remote industrial sites, and multinational businesses all depend on networks vulnerable to physical failure or geopolitical disruption. Satellite capacity can provide redundancy, although it introduces its own dependencies around terminals, spectrum, cyber security, launch access, and orbital congestion.

IRIS² is intended to address part of that market while giving European institutions greater control over sensitive connectivity, but it will enter an environment already served by commercial satellite operators with substantial installed capacity. Security and sovereignty therefore have to translate into a service that customers can actually procure and integrate.

The nearly €1 billion OHB agreement is significant because it moves those questions into delivery. Manufacturing 18 large satellite platforms requires capital to be committed, engineering teams to be assembled, suppliers to deliver, and schedules to become measurable.

With the MEO manufacturing order now placed, the next indicators of progress will be considerably less rhetorical: whether production holds its timetable, whether launch and ground infrastructure arrive alongside it, and whether a 348-satellite programme can become an operational European communications service by the end of the decade.