The German Army and Airbus have signed a 2.1 billion euro contract for the next generation of military communications satellites called SatcomBw 3, the European giant announced Thursday.
The contract includes project management for two satellites "and the ground part (receiving, launching and operating stations) for a period of 15 years," Airbus said in a statement.
These satellites, similar to the French Syracuse, the British Skynet or the Italian SeaCral, will be deployed "before the end of the decade" at an altitude of 36,000 kilometers.
These giant satellites, weighing about 6 tons, will be built on Airbus' Eurostar Neo platform and "will have extensive capabilities to keep pace with the rapid development of digitalization and the ever-increasing volume of data transfer required," Airbus said.
German satellite manufacturer OHB and small and medium-sized enterprises are also involved in the process.
"Following the success of the SatcomBw Phase 2 program, which we have been delivering since 2009, this new contract strengthens our strategic partnership with the German Army by providing it with a significantly enhanced secure military communications capability designed to be at the cutting edge of technology for the next decade," the statement quoted Airbus Defense and Space Managing Director Michael Schoellhorn as saying. .
He added that he was "excited at a time when Western democratic systems are being challenged and the European space institutional ecosystem is suffering".
At the end of June, Airbus announced new allocations of 900 million euros, up from 600 million euros last year, linked to "certain space programs," while Thales Alenia Space announced in March the elimination of 1,300 jobs, including a thousand in France.
"The main explanation is the decline in the market for geostationary satellites, which in the recent past averaged around twenty satellites per year and is now stabilizing at around ten geostationary satellites per year," said Thales director Patrice Kane.
The arrival on the market of low orbit constellations, in particular SpaceX's Starlink, has disrupted the market for these more powerful and expensive satellites.
The military satellite communications market is also evolving, as the European Union is betting on the Iris² secure communications constellation project, which will combine geostationary satellites and other low-orbit satellites.
Paris has decided not to launch a third Syracuse IV satellite in order to transfer some of its military communications to Iris².
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