Elon Musk’s decision to abruptly impose limits on Ukraine’s use of his Starlink communications network, which is critical to the country’s efforts to fight off Russia’s invasion—is prompting U.S. allies to intensify efforts to come up with their own alternatives. Europeans are expressing concerns about relying on a system with a built-in kill switch that gives Musk the power to deactivate a vital network without consultation.
“The more you play politics with your products, the more you damage your brand,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said to Musk in a post on X after Ukraine reported having problems with Starlink, which is a SpaceX system. Warsaw helps pay for Ukraine’s usage of the system. Even politicians from Trump’s (R) party are sounding alarms. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said Friday that the U.S. shouldn’t be “so dependent on one system, one person, one company.”
The problem for Starlink customers is that there isn’t likely to be a competitive alternative in the near term. The only European company able to operate satellites in low-Earth-orbit where SpaceX dominates is OneWeb, a subsidiary of the French group Eutelsat. OneWeb currently operates roughly 650 satellites and plans to grow its fleet to about 1,300 by 2030, following a 1 billion-euro—equivalent to $1.1 billion—contract signed last month with Airbus. tarlink already has more than 11,000 satellites in orbit.
OneWeb’s older technology is also less suited to Ukraine’s front line because of bulky, heavy and power-hungry terminals. Switching from Starlink or its military version Starshield to OneWeb would require replacing thousands of terminals because SpaceX uses proprietary technology. In a sign of urgency, Ukraine and Finland on Thursday announced that as part of a €300 million aid package, Kyiv will join a planned satellite-communications network run by Finnish satellite operator Iceye and networking company Nokia. The first satellites, however, are slated for launch only in 2028.
Canadian satellite-communications company Telesat has also pitched a low-Earth-orbit network, Lightspeed, as offering greater sovereignty. It aims to launch the first of 288 planned satellites in December and become operational by early 2028. The European Union has contracted with Eutelsat and two other companies to build out a sovereign satellite network of 348 satellites known as IRIS², at a cost of about $17.5 billion. The first satellites are slated to launch in 2029.
In Europe, Starlink mostly serves broadband for homes, businesses, and airline passengers, as well as limited but growing military use. What Ukraine’s military needs most is technology that is difficult to hack or jam and that provides vast amounts of bandwidth, said Tom Withington, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense think tank.
“There won’t be one technology that replaces Starlink,” he said. “They need an amalgamation of different technologies. It will need to be built up over time.” He predicted that “Ukraine’s ability to do that will surprise people.” European and Canadian funding remains small compared with SpaceX’s roughly $2 trillion market valuation. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has committed some $40 billion to space-related defense by 2030. French President Emmanuel Macron last year raised France’s space defense budget to roughly $11 billion by 2030, a 70% boost.
The German budget includes funding for orbital surveillance, a satellite operations center and a national constellation of more than 100 satellites in orbit. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has called satellite networks “an Achilles heel of modern societies.” Germany is also home to the only private company that has sent a rocket into orbit from continental Europe. Aerospace company Isar last month launched a Spectrum rocket carrying five small satellites. SpaceX’s Falcon rocket—on which OneWeb, Telesat and others rely for launches—is more than twice Spectrum’s size.
Isar launched from the only site in continental Europe outside Russia with the proven ability to send satellites into orbit: Andøya Space in Norway. Sweden also hosts an orbital launch site in Esrange, about 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, but the first such launch is planned for 2028. Given the lack of European launch sites, OneWeb has relied on sites in Russia, Kazakhstan and, after the invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s main launch facility in French Guiana, on the northern coast of South America. It has also used an Indian launch site and SpaceX rockets in Cape Canaveral and California.
“From a European perspective, we need to secure an independent launch capacity,” said Ketil Olsen, chief executive officer and president of Andøya Space. “We have built an invisible infrastructure through critical services in space. The last few days have exposed how vulnerable we are,” he said. “If you don’t have your own capacity, you can’t control the data.” Andøya Space is 90% government owned, and cannot currently launch satellites of the size required by IRIS², the EU network. Andøya’s single launchpad is reserved for Isar for up to 20 years, and plans to conduct some 30 launches in the next few years, but Olsen said the company plans to build more pads.
Sweden is also among the European nations moving the fastest in space. In 2024, Stockholm contracted with American aerospace company Planet Labs and Finland’s Iceye to send a constellation of roughly 10 military intelligence satellites into orbit, the first of which launched from California in May this year, ahead of schedule. For now, Sweden relies on the U.S. for launches, which makes it beholden to a busy schedule dominated by commercial actors.
“The demand is higher than the capability. So if you and I wanted to launch something into space, we would have to stand in last in the queue,” said Rear Adm. Anders Sundeman, the chief of space for the Swedish armed forces. Sweden’s space program is self-funded, independently of the EU’s programs, and relying on multiple partners, even if they are American, helps cushion against the whims of “one single actor,” Sundeman said. “It’s an American actor that makes the satellite, but we own it and control it,” he said.
European efforts are hobbled by bureaucracy, which rarely shows the urgency of commercial actors. “The main obstacle is leadership,” said Serge Plattard, associate fellow at the Foundation for Strategic Research, a French think tank. The EU’s satellite navigation system Galileo, created as an alternative to the American GPS and the Russian Glonass systems, was delayed nearly a decade when it entered into service in 2016. Because member states have yet to fully agree on funding and subcontractors, IRIS² is also already poised for delays, Plattard said.
“It is really not safe at all to work the way we’re working today in Europe. We are way too slow, and we are unable to anticipate what’s happening now in space,” He said. Laurent Jaffart, director of resilience, navigation and connectivity at the European Space Agency, said Europe’s efforts to achieve sovereignty in space are driven by a long-term vision rather than individual incidents like the slowdown in Ukraine.
“Recent events nevertheless underline, if not reconfirm, the importance of ensuring that Europe has resilient and sovereign capabilities for essential services,” He said.
Michael H. Drucker
