What is IRIS²?

IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite) is the European Union's sovereign multi-orbit communications constellation — the EU's third flagship space infrastructure after Galileo and Copernicus. Financed at roughly €10.6 billion of combined EU, ESA and private money and implemented by the SpaceRISE consortium, it targets secure governmental and commercial connectivity with initial services around 2030.

Why founders should care

IRIS² is less a call you apply to and more a decade-long supply chain: ground segment, payload technologies, security, integration services. The implementing arrangements include commitments to involve SMEs and NewSpace companies — meaning subcontracting doors that a small company can realistically enter, especially in niches primes do not want to build in-house.

Practical route: track supplier and partnering announcements from the consortium and the EU, position your technology against a named subsystem need, and use national agency co-funding to mature it to the required TRL.

Official source: EU Defence Industry and Space — IRIS².

Written by Tymofiy Badikov, founder of VIRA.space (Virtual Innovation Research Assistant) — operated by Space Tech Gateway Sp. z o.o., Kraków Technology Park. VIRA tracks live European space funding calls and checks your eligibility free: see live tenders.