Germany Plans Its Own Military Satellite Constellation to Break From Starlink

Germany’s armed forces are pursuing plans to build a sovereign satellite constellation capable of providing resilient, low-latency communications for military operations — a capability currently filled, in large part, by Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starlink. The plans, first reported by German business newspaper Handelsblatt in April 2025 and confirmed by a German Ministry of Defence spokesperson, call for at least one constellation of hundreds of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, with a target date of 2029, though it remains unclear whether that year marks the project’s start or its completion.

The impetus is unmistakable. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 demonstrated, with vivid clarity, how commercial satellite networks can become critical military infrastructure overnight. Starlink’s role in sustaining Ukrainian battlefield communications was widely noted in NATO capitals — and so was the unsettling implication: a Western military’s communications lifeline could rest on the decisions of a single private company and its chief executive.

What the Bundeswehr Is Building

According to reporting by SatNews and Il Sole 24 Ore, the constellation is envisioned to consist of at least 100 satellites — some reports cite up to 200 — designed in a manner modelled partly on the US Space Development Agency’s “Warfighter Space Architecture.” The satellites would provide high-bandwidth, low-latency communications linking tanks, ships, drones, aircraft, and individual soldiers in near real-time. The LEO design provides inherent resilience: losing individual satellites to orbital threats or malfunctions does not compromise the network as a whole.

Beyond pure communications, the Bundeswehr is also eyeing remote sensing as a secondary function, potentially creating an integrated reconnaissance-and-communications capability from a single constellation. Germany’s space coordinator for the armed forces, Armin Fleischmann, has indicated the project will be developed primarily with German companies, with Rheinmetall in active early-stage talks with satellite manufacturer OHB about a joint bid. The constellation’s operational priority is reported to be NATO’s eastern flank — consistent with Germany’s commitment to station a permanent 5,000-soldier brigade in Lithuania.

The broader financial ambition is substantial. Berlin has announced a €35 billion plan for military space technology, and analysts note that the new investments position Germany to become the world’s third-largest investor in space, behind the United States and China.

Not the EU’s IRIS² — Intentionally

A defining and controversial feature of the Bundeswehr’s project is that it is entirely separate from the European Union’s own planned constellation, IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite). That distinction has generated friction within European institutions.

IRIS² is the EU’s third flagship space programme, after Galileo and Copernicus. In December 2024, the European Commission awarded a €10.5 billion concession contract to SpaceRISE — a consortium of SES, Eutelsat, and Hispasat, backed by subcontractors including Airbus Defence and Space, OHB, Thales Alenia Space, Deutsche Telekom, and Telespazio. The system will comprise 264 LEO satellites at roughly 1,200 km altitude and 18 MEO satellites at 8,000 km, with initial government services expected in 2030.

Some members of the European Parliament have voiced concern that Germany’s parallel track could fragment European defence architecture, creating incompatibilities in military infrastructure precisely when interoperability matters most. Their preference is for Berlin to channel resources into IRIS² rather than pursue a standalone national system.

The German position, implicitly, is one of timing: IRIS² will not be operational until 2030 at the earliest. Germany argues that it cannot afford a gap in sovereign satellite communications capability throughout the latter half of this decade, particularly as geopolitical uncertainty — including questions about US commitment to NATO — has intensified the need for autonomous European capabilities.

The Cost and Sustainability Question

The financial model underlying a purely defence-oriented constellation is markedly less forgiving than that of a commercial system like Starlink. SpaceX’s network benefits from massive economies of scale, with defence and government services layered on top of a profitable consumer and enterprise internet business. A Bundeswehr constellation, by contrast, would likely be funded almost entirely by the German government — covering not only construction and launch costs but the ongoing, substantial expenses of operations, maintenance, and eventual satellite replacement.

Whether Germany will sustain the political will and budgetary commitment required over the full lifecycle of such a system remains an open question. Defence spending priorities in Germany have shifted considerably since 2022, but large, long-duration space programmes are perennially vulnerable to budget cycles, coalition politics, and shifting threat assessments.

A Transitional Architecture, or a Permanent One?

The most likely near-term outcome is that the Bundeswehr constellation, if it proceeds on schedule, functions as a transitional capability: filling the sovereign communications gap from around 2029 until IRIS² reaches full operational capability sometime in the early 2030s. The two systems could then integrate — or coexist — depending on their technical compatibility and the political dynamics between Berlin and Brussels at the time.

Germany is not alone in this calculus. Italy has advanced its own Project Mercury, a dual-use LEO constellation coordinated by its Interministerial Committee for Space and Aerospace Policies with industrial backing from Leonardo and Telespazio, expected to reach full operation no earlier than 2031. Conversations between Germany, France, and Italy about potential synergies are ongoing, though no formal joint programme has emerged.

For now, the Bundeswehr’s plans signal a clear directional commitment: Europe’s largest economy intends to reduce its dependence on foreign satellite infrastructure — and it is prepared to spend significantly to do so, on its own timeline.