Europe’s push to reduce US reliance is reshaping the defense space market

PARIS — Demand for sovereign satellite capabilities is growing in Europe as governments seek greater control over access to relevant infrastructure.

The push comes after restrictions by the United States on satellite access in Ukraine and the Middle East over the past two years underscored the risk of dependence, executives and policy makers said at an industry conference here last week.

“Sovereignty” was a recurring theme at the World Space Business Week, held from Sept. 14 to 17 in Paris, and the two-day Space Defense & Security Summit side event.

U.S. firms touted their ability to build satellites in Europe or operate free from International Traffic in Arms Regulations, while European companies highlighted their ability to provide local clients with complete satellite systems.

“The drive to sovereignty, we all have customers that want to go there,” said Noam Segal, the chief executive officer of Israeli firm ImageSat International , or ISI. “Any of the defense customers we are dealing with can find themselves in a geopolitical situation in which one of the suppliers will not be able to deliver. I think this is the driver.”

The war in Ukraine has highlighted both the importance of satellite data on the modern battlefield and the reliance of Western militaries on U.S. suppliers for critical space capabilities. Restrictions on Starlink access in Ukraine, a halt in U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine in March 2025 and imagery restrictions over the Middle East in 2026 are pushing European countries to seek sovereign alternatives.

The lesson from Ukraine has been to show how critical space has become for defense, as well as “the importance of indeed not being reliant on solutions you don’t control,” said Guillaume de la Brosse, head of the defense policy and innovation unit at the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm.

He said there is a “clear imperative” to accelerate development of sovereign space-based capabilities in Europe, meaning a minimum backbone of public assets owned by either the EU or member states, and an EU-based industry able to provide sovereign services “that we can control all the time.”

“Sovereignty very much matters, this is what we’ve learned from Ukraine,” De la Brosse said. “That does not preclude the fact that we need cooperation, whatever happens, but that as a pre-requirement has sovereignty. It’s good to cut dependencies where we need to cut dependencies, and that’s very much the agenda of the upcoming years.”

Recent history showed space sovereignty is the only ultimate guarantee of having the freedom to “assess and act when conflict breaks out,” said Jean-Baptiste Paing, a deputy director at France’s Directorate General for Armament whose responsibilities include intelligence and space operations. He cited the difficulty obtaining commercial satellite communications over Afghanistan and, more recently, access to commercial imaging during the various crises in the Middle East.

The emergence of New Space, the shift from a government-dominated to a private space industry that has cut the cost of launchers and satellites, is allowing European governments to establish space sovereignty even with relatively limited budgets, executives said.

The number of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites for defense purposes, “a key priority for most nations,” is expected to increase more than fourfold through to 2035, according to industry consultancy Novaspace, which organized the conferences.

New Space provides “an incredible opportunity” for countries that didn’t have a space industry to develop their own sovereign capabilities, said Vincent Dedieu, the CEO of Sodern , a unit of France’s ArianeGroup. He said Sodern has been working with countries such as Poland, Bulgaria and Finland, which are taking advantage of New Space to catch up in both defense and commercial space.

The fact that customers are now able to own space assets at a “completely different cost point” from the past means the push for sovereign capabilities “is a strong trend that’s going to be there for the future,” according to Segal at ISI.

There is a “seismic shift” in how industry and governments deal with space capabilities, said Julia Gottfriedsen, chief technology officer at German thermal-imaging startup Constellr . She cited the example of Germany buying data from ICEYE and Rheinmetall for its brigade in Lithuania, through a service-level agreement that shifted the risk for data supply to the companies.

“So this is pretty modern and new, while in parallel, of course, the governments are also looking into procuring their own infrastructure,” Gottfriedsen said.

Executives at U.S.-based geospatial intelligence firms such as Planet Labs, BlackSky and Vantor all noted that their satellites can be delivered ITAR-free, with several highlighting their European presence or ability to manufacture their satellites outside the Untied States.

HawkEye 360 CEO John Serafini said partnerships with Italy’s Leonardo and Czechia’s ERA and having a Luxembourg subsidiary means he’s confident that “even as a U.S. company,” the firm can meet the requirement of European militaries “regardless of how those customers want the sovereignty delivered to them.”

Planet Labs cut the ribbon on a new facility in Berlin this week, and co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Robbie Schingler said the company’s first German-built Pelican satellite is set to come off the production line by the end of the year and sent into orbit on a German-built Isar Aerospace rocket launched from Norway “sometime early next year.”

Meanwhile, Finland’s ICEYE is taking sovereignty “to a whole different level” to fulfill a German order for a 40-satellite constellation, setting up a manufacturing site in western Germany controlled by a German-owned entity and keeping the entire supply chain within the country, according to CEO Rafal Modrzewski. That does require a sufficiently large order to justify the investment, he said.

For European customers that own and operate a smaller number of ICEYE satellites , such as Sweden, Finland, Poland and the Netherlands, the company is now offering a software layer that allows countries to “federate their assets at the tactical level” and borrow each other’s capabilities to cover areas of interest, Modrzewski said.

One element of sovereignty is assurance and control, another is choice, said Schingler at Planet Labs. The federation approach allows countries to network their systems for an ad hoc mission, “and that choice also gives a lot of sovereignty,” he said.

The European Commission is pushing for international cooperation to remain the way of doing things in space, including through discussions with NATO about space security, even if “that cooperation is very much challenged, and there is a need for Europeans to do much more, investing in their freedom of action,” De la Brosse said.

He said that as EU members invest heavily in space, one challenge is to avoid “renationalization of space policies,” and the commission is using the EU budget to provide an incentive to member states to coordinate investments and pool space resources rather than develop constellations without taking other member states into account.

Germany’s plan to invest a “massive” €35 billion in sovereign military space capabilities by 2030 may raise concern among some EU members that the country will “fly solo,” but the investment is a legitimate sovereign choice, said Paing at the DGA.

“I cannot speak for sovereignty myself without recognizing the same capacity in other countries, and I think it should be seen more as a model to follow for others rather than something to be afraid of,” Paing said. “That being said, I believe that this investment should nevertheless be put at the service of building a stronger Europe.”

Sovereignty also includes the ability to get satellites into orbit, executives said, with several remarking on the scarcity of launch slots. Nicolas Lefort, the head of new markets at MBDA, said France’s Toutatis project to bring a maneuverable satellite into low-Earth orbit is still waiting for a launcher.

François Lombard , the head of connected intelligence at Airbus Defence and Space, said he’s optimistic about new European players offering launchers capable of carrying one-ton payloads into LEO, citing a recent successful launch by Germany’s Isar Aerospace, as well as ArianeGroup’s MaiaSpace coming to the market “pretty soon.”

“In that case, European alternatives, which is good,” Lombard said. “There are a few satellites we cannot launch from other continents, so it’s important that we have also the sovereign access to space for this class of satellites in a competitive manner.”

Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.

巴黎——随着各国政府寻求对相关基础设施的更大控制权，欧洲对自主卫星能力的需求正在增长。

上周，企业高管和政策制定者在一次行业会议上表示，过去两年美国对乌克兰和中东卫星接入的限制凸显了依赖性的风险，而此次推动正是在此背景下发生的。

在 9 月 14 日至 17 日于巴黎举行的世界航天商业周以及为期两天的太空防御与安全峰会边会上，“主权”是一个反复出现的主题。

美国公司吹嘘自己有能力在欧洲建造卫星或不受《国际武器贸易条例》约束地运营，而欧洲公司则强调自己有能力为当地客户提供完整的卫星系统。

“我们所有的客户都希望实现主权自主，”以色列ImageSat International（简称ISI）首席执行官诺姆·西格尔表示。“我们任何国防客户都可能面临地缘政治危机，导致其中一家供应商无法按时交付。我认为这就是驱动因素。”

乌克兰战争凸显了卫星数据在现代战场上的重要性，以及西方军队对美国供应商在关键太空能力方面的依赖。乌克兰对星链卫星接入的限制、美国将于2025年3月停止与乌克兰的情报共享以及2026年对中东地区的图像传输限制，正促使欧洲国家寻求自主替代方案。

欧盟执行机构欧盟委员会国防政策与创新部门负责人纪尧姆·德拉布罗斯表示，乌克兰的教训表明，太空对国防的重要性日益凸显，同时也表明“确实不应该依赖你无法控制的解决方案”。

他表示，加快欧洲自主太空能力的发展“势在必行”，这意味着欧盟或成员国必须拥有最低限度的公共资产骨干，以及一个能够提供“我们可以始终控制的”自主服务的欧盟产业。

德拉布罗斯说：“主权至关重要，这是我们从乌克兰事件中学到的。但这并不意味着我们不需要合作，无论发生什么，但主权是合作的前提条件。我们应该在需要的地方减少依赖，而这正是未来几年的重点议程。”

法国军备总局副局长让-巴蒂斯特·潘格表示，近期历史表明，太空主权是确保在冲突爆发时能够“评估局势并采取行动”的唯一最终保障。潘格的职责包括情报和太空行动。他举例说，在阿富汗上空获取商业卫星通信十分困难，而最近在中东的各种危机中，获取商业成像服务也面临重重挑战。

高管们表示，新太空的出现，即航天产业从政府主导向私营企业主导的转变，降低了运载火箭和卫星的成本，使得欧洲各国政府即使在预算相对有限的情况下也能建立太空主权。

据组织此次会议的行业咨询公司 Novaspace 称，用于国防目的的情报、监视和侦察卫星的数量“是大多数国家的首要任务”，预计到 2035 年将增加四倍以上。

法国阿丽亚娜集团旗下子公司Sodern的首席执行官文森特·德迪厄表示，新太空领域为那些原本没有航天工业的国家提供了“绝佳的机会”，使其能够发展自身的自主航天能力。他指出，Sodern一直在与波兰、保加利亚和芬兰等国合作，这些国家正利用新太空领域在国防和商业航天领域迎头赶上。

ISI 的 Segal 表示，客户现在能够以与过去“完全不同的成本点”拥有太空资产，这意味着对自主能力的追求“是一个强劲的趋势，并将持续到未来”。

德国热成像初创公司Constellr的首席技术官Julia Gottfriedsen表示，工业界和政府应对太空能力的方式正在发生“巨大转变”。她举例说，德国通过服务水平协议从ICEYE和莱茵金属公司购买数据，用于其在立陶宛的部队，该协议将数据供应的风险转移给了这些公司。

“所以这相当现代化和新颖，与此同时，各国政府当然也在考虑采购自己的基础设施，”戈特弗里德森说。

总部位于美国的地理空间情报公司（如 Planet Labs、BlackSky 和 ​​Vantor）的高管们都指出，他们的卫星可以不受 ITAR 管制地交付，其中几位还强调了他们在欧洲的业务或在美国境外制造卫星的能力。

HawkEye 360​​ 首席执行官 John Serafini 表示，与意大利 Leonardo 公司和捷克 ERA 公司建立合作关系，并在卢森堡设有子公司，这意味着他有信心“即使作为一家美国公司”，该公司也能满足欧洲军队的要求，“无论这些客户希望以何种方式获得主权”。

Planet Labs 本周在柏林为其新工厂举行了剪彩仪式。联合创始人兼首席战略官罗比·辛格勒表示，该公司首颗德国制造的 Pelican 卫星将于今年年底下线，并由德国制造的 Isar Aerospace 火箭从挪威发射升空，“预计明年年初某个时候”送入轨道。

与此同时，芬兰的ICEYE公司正在将自主研发提升到一个“全新高度”。为了完成德国订购的40颗卫星星座项目，该公司在德国西部设立了一个由德国控股的制造基地，并将整个供应链都留在德国境内。ICEYE首席执行官拉法尔·莫德热夫斯基表示，他指出，这确实需要足够大的订单才能证明这项投资的合理性。

莫德热夫斯基表示，对于拥有和运营较少 ICEYE 卫星的欧洲客户，例如瑞典、芬兰、波兰和荷兰，该公司现在提供了一个软件层，允许各国“在战术层面联合其资产”，并相互借用能力来覆盖感兴趣的区域。

Planet Labs的辛格勒表示，主权的一个要素是保障和控制，另一个要素是选择。联邦模式允许各国将其系统联网以执行临时任务，“这种选择也赋予了国家很大的主权，”他说道。

德拉布罗斯表示，欧盟委员会正在推动国际合作继续作为太空领域的行事方式，包括与北约就太空安全进行讨论，即使“这种合作面临着很大的挑战，欧洲人需要做更多的工作，投资于他们的行动自由”。

他表示，由于欧盟成员国在太空领域投入巨资，一个挑战是避免“太空政策的重新国有化”，欧盟委员会正在利用欧盟预算激励成员国协调投资和汇集太空资源，而不是在不考虑其他成员国的情况下开发星座。

德国国防军总局的佩恩表示，德国计划到 2030 年投资 350 亿欧元用于发展自主军事太空能力，这可能会引起一些欧盟成员国的担忧，认为德国将“单干”，但这项投资是德国合法的自主选择。

“我不能在不承认其他国家也拥有同样能力的情况下谈论主权问题，我认为主权应该被视为其他国家效仿的榜样，而不是令人恐惧的东西，”佩恩说。“即便如此，我认为这项投资仍然应该服务于建设一个更强大的欧洲。”

高管们表示，主权还包括将卫星送入轨道的能力，其中几位还提到发射时段的稀缺性。MBDA公司新市场负责人尼古拉斯·勒福尔表示，法国的Toutatis项目旨在将一颗可机动卫星送入近地轨道，但该项目仍在等待运载火箭。

空中客车防务与航天公司互联智能主管弗朗索瓦·隆巴德表示，他对欧洲新晋企业提供能够将一吨有效载荷送入近地轨道的运载火箭持乐观态度，并列举了德国伊萨尔航天公司最近一次成功的发射，以及阿丽亚娜集团旗下的MaiaSpace即将“很快”进入市场。

“在这种情况下，欧洲的替代方案是好事，”隆巴德说。“有些卫星我们无法从其他大陆发射，因此，我们必须以具有竞争力的方式拥有这类卫星的自主太空发射权。”

鲁迪·鲁伊滕贝格是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者。他的职业生涯始于彭博新闻社，拥有报道科技、大宗商品市场和政治方面的经验。