UK invests $191 million in Eutelsat to compete with Starlink

Here's the news for you: the UK is back in business. The government of this country has invested $191 million in the European satellite communications giant Eutelsat in order to maintain its influence and keep up with the American Starlink project. This is part of a larger 1.35 billion euro funding round led by France.  

This move brings Britain and France even closer together in the space sphere, especially now that satellites are becoming more important than ever due to geopolitical games and the need to have their own connection, not someone else's. The British even retained the so-called "golden share" in their satellite company OneWeb to control key decisions.

The French state, by the way, is also awake — it has invested 717 million euros and now owns about 30% of Eutelsat. That is, Europe clearly wants to collect all the coolest things at home, so as not to depend on the United States.  

The goal is simple — to create an independent European satellite infrastructure. Eutelsat currently operates more than 600 satellites, including OneWeb satellites in low Earth orbit. Their task is to counter the huge Starlink fleet, which already has about 6,000 satellites, but to do so through secure and sovereign networks that will be of interest to both governments and large corporations throughout Europe.

Another important point is that these investments support the EU's strategic project called IRIS2, which is expected to launch 290 satellites by 2030. It will not just be the Internet in space, but a whole secure system for government and business needs.  

By the way, after all these announcements, Eutelsat shares rose by 8-10%, which shows that the market believes in the success of this venture. The company also received a contract from France for 1 billion euros related to defense projects, which is also a good bonus.  

In general, we can say that Eutelsat claims to be the main European answer to Starlink — only instead of a private game, states, technologies and strategic interests work together here.