European Satellite Group Ready to Step Up for Kyiv’s Military: CEO
European satellite operator Eutelsat is under the spotlight like never before because of fears that Elon Musk’s Starlink could pull its crucial service from Ukraine.
Musk this month called his satellite-internet service the “backbone of the Ukrainian army” fighting Russia and said “their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off”.
That sent Europeans scrambling for alternatives, and stocks in the sector soaring, given the world’s richest man’s proximity to US President Donald Trump having briefly shut off military aid and intelligence-sharing to Ukraine.
Kyiv has also said it looking for an “alternative” to Starlink because of rising tensions with Washington.
But Eutelsat’s boss Eva Berneke said the world’s second-largest low-orbit satellite operator was “the only alternative” and despite “less capacity” than Starlink for now, had “perfect coverage” over Ukraine.
Starlink, a SpaceX subsidiary, tallied around 6,000 satellites in low orbit in early 2024, compared with more than 600 for EutelSat’s OneWeb.
“I don’t think that’s a big problem… for important military requirements, the capacity we have today in Ukraine is more than enough,” Berneke said.
Eutelsat needs fewer satellites to provide the same capacity, in part thanks to its orbiters’ greater distance from the Earth’s surface, she added.
The European company is not currently in a position to provide connectivity to the entire population in Ukraine, where ground-based networks have been partially destroyed since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Berneke says Eutelsat, a largely business-to-business provider unlike consumer-focused SpaceX, has neither sufficient ground terminals nor enough satellites for such an effort.
Its operation has instead been conceived to serve “mobile operators, governments, everything that moves on sea and in the air”, she said.
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Eutelsat’s capabilities and expertise mean Berneke expects to have a seat at the table in any discussion of European communications sovereignty.
“These are highly relevant talks today with Ukraine but should be taking place everywhere,” she said.
Away from the conflict, a satellite-communications showdown has erupted between Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government and opposition parties over a mooted Starlink contract for secure communications.
Eutelsat is involved in talks with a number of countries about providing connectivity, Berneke said.
“Even if France or Germany or even my home in Denmark aren’t at war, people are saying to themselves that it is a good idea after all to have an alternative,” she added.
One concern governments may have is finding themselves dependent on SpaceX or other foreign providers in the chain of building, launching and operating satellites.
SpaceX has a hand in almost all of the stages, including for Eutelsat.
In October last year, for example, around 20 new satellites were launched for Eutelsat’s OneWeb constellation on a Falcon 9 rocket from Elon Musk’s company.
SpaceX “provides around 90 percent of capacity in the launch market”, Berneke noted, adding that Eutelsat was “very likely” to remain a customer.
Eutelsat belongs to a consortium of companies designated by the European Union to deploy the new Iris² constellation of communications satellites, to reinforce communications infrastructure across the bloc.
“A big part of Iris’s reason for being is to make sure that we’re building and producing in Europe… it’s going to take a bit of time,” Berneke acknowledged.
The multi-orbit constellation is not expected to enter service before 2030.
Between now and then, Eutelsat has 100 Airbus-built satellites scheduled for launch, followed by 340 in a “second generation” to keep OneWeb functioning.
Source: AFP