Europe has decided to acquire its own constellation of Internet connection satellites by 2024. The objective is to provide Europeans and Africans with strategic and digital sovereignty in the field of broadband connections.
10% of households in the countries of the European Union (EU) do not yet have permanent access to the Internet. This constellation of European satellites will make it possible to offer an efficient and inexpensive broadband connection.
“ This satellite internet network will provide connectivity to the white areas of Europe which are still too numerous, explains Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, in charge of digital and space. And we know that this connection is essential for citizens of the European Union to reach public or health services. »
But it will also serve as a backup device for electronic communications in the event of saturation or collapse of the terrestrial network during a cyberattack, specifies Thierry Breton: “ It is a constellation of micro satellites that has been designed to resist hacker attacks. It will enable us to secure intergovernmental communications in Europe, but it will also play an essential role for our military and defense systems. »
Launch planned for 2024
The announcement of the development of a European satellite Internet was welcomed at the opening of the EU-AU summit by the President of Senegal and the African Union, Macky Sall. “ The satellites that will occupy North-South orbits will cover the whole of Africapoints out Thierry Breton. And we will thus have the possibility of offering this high-speed connectivity to the whole continent, because we consider that Africa and Europe share a common destiny, including in the digital information space. »
This third space infrastructure completes the Galileo GPS positioning system and that of the Earth observation satellites, Copernicus. The project already has a budget of around 6 billion euros. The first satellites should be operational and launched in 2024.
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