Belgian startup beats Airbus to build most of IRIS²
What happened
Handelsblatt reported that Aerospacelab, a Belgian small-satellite manufacturer, has won the contract to build the bulk of IRIS²'s LEO satellite layer — up to 264 of the constellation's 348 total satellites, contract value "at least €1.8bn" — beating Airbus, which industry watchers had expected to lead. OHB (Germany) separately gets the 18 MEO satellites, valued at roughly €1bn. Airbus is not shut out entirely: it wins the 66 Mil-Ka military-communications satellites (the dedicated High-LEO defence/security/emergency layer added at the Aug 7 Rendez-vous 1 signing). First launches remain targeted for 2029, with the first EU government agencies able to use the system roughly a year later. This is the first granular per-company manufacturing breakdown surfaced since the Aug 7 signing, which had only named an "industrial team" (Airbus, Thales Alenia Space, OHB, Aerospacelab, plus wider supply chain) without a specific split. It does not contradict the previously-tracked operational split (Hispasat leads ground segment + Low-LEO D2D/IoT; SES leads the MEO segment's user-terminal dev/ops and service provisioning) — that describes who *operates* which segment; this new reporting describes who *manufactures* the satellites, a distinct axis. All coverage traces to the same Handelsblatt original; no independent second-source confirmation (EC, SpaceRISE, Aerospacelab, Airbus, or OHB have not issued their own statements as of this brief's cutoff) — treat the specific euro figures and satellite counts as reported-not-confirmed pending a primary statement.
Read-across for SES
Doesn't touch SES's own MEO/ground-segment/user-terminal scope directly, but is the first concrete "who builds what" picture for IRIS²'s LEO layer — material to tracking programme execution risk (a startup, not an established prime, building the majority of the constellation) and to the EXISTENTIAL thread's overall credibility as SES's own €1.35bn MEO commitment depends on the programme landing on schedule.
As the brief filed it
[AGE: 22h] German financial press (Handelsblatt, syndicated widely) reports IRIS²'s first granular satellite-manufacturing split: Belgian startup Aerospacelab beats Airbus for the bulk of the LEO layer (up to 264 sats, ≥€1.8bn), OHB gets the 18 MEO sats (~€1bn), Airbus gets the 66 Mil-Ka defence sats — still "persons familiar with the matter" sourced, no primary EC/SpaceRISE confirmation yet.