IRIS² - Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite
What is IRIS²?
IRIS² (the Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite) is a Satellite Constellation that offers enhanced communication capacities, while ensuring high-speed internet broadband. A satellite constellation refers to a group of satellites working together in space to provide coverage or a specific service over an area.
The primary purpose of IRIS² is to ensure that the European Union has reliable, secure, and autonomous satellite communication capabilities.
The objectives of IRIS² include:
Enhancing Security: Providing highly secure and encrypted communication services to prevent unauthorized access and ensure privacy.
Increasing Resilience: Building a system that can withstand and quickly recover from various forms of disruptions, including natural disasters and cyber-attacks.
Supporting EU Autonomy: Reducing dependence on non-EU satellite communication systems, which aligns with the EU's broader strategy of technological and strategic autonomy.
Serving Remote Areas: Ensuring coverage in remote or underserved regions of Europe, where terrestrial networks are not feasible or economical.
This multi-orbital constellation combines the benefits offered by Low Earth (LEO), Geostationary (GEO), and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites. It provides secure communication services to the EU and its Member States, as well as broadband connectivity for European citizens, private companies and governmental authorities.
Our world is moving into a new digital era, making our economy and security increasingly depending on secure and resilient connectivity.
Characterised by ever-increasing needs for hyper-connectivity, major technological transformations and the quest for digital sovereignty, the current decade has seen secure connectivity becoming a public commodity, with an unprecedented increase of demand for satcom services.
In a geopolitical context where cyber and hybrid threats are multiplying, security and resilience concerns are growing and call for a quantitative and qualitative improvement of EU governmental satcom capacities, moving towards higher security solutions, low latency and higher bandwidth.
Relying on quantum cryptography through the European Quantum Communication Infrastructure (EuroQCI), and enhanced cybersecurity through a secure-by-design approach for the infrastructure, the system will bring an unprecedented security level to its users.
Integrating innovative technologies, derived from both established space industry players with proven technology as well as the disruptive "New Space" ecosystem, it will also offer scalability capacities for future needs, thanks to a multi-orbital (Low, Medium and Geosynchronous Orbits) approach.
