Major European satellite companies merge to create Starlink competitor

Starlink may have a competitor soon as Europe’s big time satellite companies band together to provide global communications.

This partnership includes companies like Airbus Defence and Space, Eutelsat, SES, and Thales Alenia Space to construct a satellite constellation to give secure communications for government services. The European Union (EU) is providing 2.4 billion Euro alongside contributions from private investments and the Eurpoean Space Agency.

With China planning their own constellation and OneWeb being under the United Kingdom, the country that made a public exit to the EU, the European companies decided they need their own cluster of satellites. Coordinating this is currently the struggle that this huge collaboration entails.

Back in 2018, SpaceX has released their first two satellites and it took them four more years to globally roll out Starlink‘s network.