Europe’s answer to Starlink? Airbus, Thales, and Leonardo reportedly agree to satellite merger
European aerospace companies Leonardo, Airbus and Thales will be merging their satellite businesses, according to Reuters.
The three companies have reportedly reached a framework deal that will allow them to create “Project Bromo,” a satellite manufacturing company to compete with rivals in China and the United States, notably Elon Musk’s Starlink.
Euronews Next is working to independently verify the Reuters report.
A report surfaced of their proposed satellite company last year, when officials told Reuters that a new company would combine satellite assets instead of having one partner buying assets from the rest.
One of the companies that Project Bromo aims to rival is Musk’s SpaceX which has rolled out the Starlink megaconstellation that launched its 10,000 satelliteinto orbit over the weekend. Approximately 8,680 of these satellites are in orbit, according to astronomer Jonathan MacDowell who tracks operational satellites.
In 2021, the United States’s Federal Communications Commission approved Musk’s plan to deploy at least 12,000 satellites by 2026.
Starlink is used throughout Europe in places such as Ukraine, where an estimated 50,000 terminals in use to keep the country’s railways, schools, and hospitals online in the event of a power outage.
The country’s leading telecommunications company also signed a deal with the company earlier this year to start testing direct satellite-to-cellphone service.
Other companies are also working to compete with Starlink, such as Eutelsat, which recently received a €1.35 billion cash injection from the French government, according to the French newspaper Le Monde.
The European Space Agency is also working on a megaconstellation with Thales called the High-throughput Digital and Optical Network (HydRON) project, where satellites will transmit laser signals between each other and a few optical networks on the ground to deliver internet speeds up to a terabyte per second.
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