ESA boss Aschbacher: “Europe’s companies are ready for a satellite constellation”

space travel

30. Jan 2023

By Thomas A. Friedrich

In an interview, ESA boss Josef Aschbacher talks about the planned satellite constellation Iris2, with which the EU wants to make itself independent of non-European space infrastructure.

VDI news: Mr. Aschbacher, Europe is working on a new major space project: Iris². How do you classify its importance – compared to the two previous flagship projects, the Galileo navigation service and the Copernicus earth observation program?

Josef Aschbacher: With the Galileo satellite navigation system, we now have the most accurate signal in the world, better than GPS or any other system in the world. The second major success is Copernicus, which is now considered the gold standard in earth observation and is the best system in the world. So I assume that the third EU flagship project, Iris², will also be a success. We are still at the very beginning – shortly after the birth, so to speak – and still have to raise the child. But I have no doubt that we will make a very successful program out of it.