The European Space Agency has awarded 18 contracts worth a combined €20 million to study potential future evolutions of the European Union’s IRIS2 secure communications service.
Signed on 17 September, the contracts bring together nearly 80 European companies to study new satellite-based secure connectivity services and associated mission concepts. According to ESA, the solutions will have applications in secure government broadband, maritime operations and aviation, data relaying and satellite tasking.
The studies will focus on the Low-LEO layer of the IRIS2 constellation. This layer will operate below approximately 750 kilometres, compared with the main IRIS2 LEO-High component at around 1,200 kilometres, which will account for the bulk of the constellation’s LEO satellites.
This Low-LEO layer will itself be split into two complementary components. The European Commission-led component is intended to provide strategic government services within the operational IRIS2 system. ESA’s component, meanwhile, provides a mechanism to develop, demonstrate, and validate new capabilities or evolutions of current capabilities before integrating them into the broader operational constellation.
An ESA report published in May 2025 described this development pathway as a Low-LEO “Sandbox” that would be isolated from the operational IRIS2 system, and a separate “Pre-Operational” environment. More recently, ESA has refined that terminology, referring instead to De-Risk Activities for earlier-stage in-orbit demonstrations and Low-LEO Pre-Operational Activities for validating more mature services ahead of potential integration into the IRIS2 service offering.
“Through its Low-LEO activities, ESA looks forward to working hand-in-hand with the European Commission and European industry to explore what comes next for IRIS2; to shape the capabilities that will support Europe’s future connectivity needs,” said Laurent Jaffart, Director of ESA’s Resilience, Navigation and Connectivity.
The 18 newly awarded contracts form part of the initial consolidation phase for these Pre-Operational and De-Risk activities. The contracted teams will assess the value, technical feasibility and interoperability of potential services and associated mission concepts.
After the newly awarded studies are completed, ESA plans to publish a separate call for the implementation phase. ESA expects to carry out a selected group of missions between 2027 and 2029 to validate the proposed services in orbit.
