EUR: Europe’s space defense technology ambitions

Presented by FTI Consulting

BLUF: The EU is preparing to activate Galileo PRS, its dedicated satellite navigation service for government and military, and has already equipped Galileo with anti-spoofing safeguards. 

It has begun bolstering the system with new low-earth orbit satellites that can better resist jamming. 

Europe is also planning new arrays to provide secure communications and earth observation systems suitable for military use, and preparing legislation to protect space assets from cyberattacks.  

On 17 December, an Ariane 6 rocket blasted off from the Guiana Space Centre—also known as ‘Europe’s Spaceport’—in French Guiana, an overseas department of France on South America’s northeast coast. 

The rocket carried two satellites to join the Galileo constellation, which is essentially Europe’s version of America’s GPS.

The difference between the two is that GPS is a military asset available for civilian use. Galileo is about to do the reverse. A dedicated government and military signal, the Public Regulated Service (PRS)—analogous to the GPS M-Code—is due to become operational this year.

The activation of the Galileo PRS is just one of several security capabilities that Europe is adding to the EU Space Programme, which operates satellites for navigation, communications, Earth observation and research.

For example, Galileo’s anti-spoofing safeguard, OSNMA, was activated in July. The new Celeste low-earth orbit array, meanwhile, is intended to bolster Galileo’s satellite navigation service against jamming. 

Meanwhile, the European Commission wants to invest in a new Earth Observation Governmental Service (EOGS), more suited to military needs than the current Copernicus program. It’s also proposed new laws to protect satellites from cyberattacks and physical collisions. Additionally, there are long-term plans for new secure communications capabilities: starting with the GOVSATCOM program, which integrates national capabilities, and culminating in Iris², an alternative to Elon Musk’s Starlink.

The European Commission’s proposal for the EU Space Act, a weighty draft law still being negotiated by member states and EU parliamentarians, would require satellites to have collision-avoidance systems. 

That’s ostensibly about avoiding space junk, but such systems can also be used to detect satellites that move suspiciously close to others to spy on them, said Benedetta Cattani, founder and CEO of Ecosmic, an Italian startup providing collision-avoidance software. 

The firm was recently selected for the 2026 cohort of the NATO-DIANA innovation accelerator.

Another concern is the potential for orbital sabotage. In November, German defense minister Boris Pistorius warned in a speech that “China is conducting highly agile and dynamic approach maneuvers with its space systems,” comparable to aerial combat exercises.

Part of the problem is not knowing the reason for such maneuvers, said an official at the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU diplomatic service, which supplies member states with classified annual reports on space threats.

They could be for benign operations, like debris removal. But if China were testing whether it could use a satellite-mounted robotic arm to push one of its own satellites out of orbit, we wouldn’t necessarily know, the official said.

“If they can do it with theirs, they can do it with ours.”

Russia and China have conducted successful tests of Direct Ascent Anti-Satellite (DA-ASAT) missiles, launched from the ground at their own defunct satellites. So has the US.

Russia has stated that it considers all satellites being used by Ukraine to be legitimate targets. 

The Ukrainians “use a lot of commercial providers from all over, and if the Russians clearly state that those are a legitimate target, that means we have to take that seriously,” the EEAS official said.

The Space Act proposal would also introduce cybersecurity requirements for satellite systems.

“There are lots of attempts at cyber-attacks on the EU Space Programme,” the EEAS official said. “So far, they have not been successful.” 

Details of the attacks are classified, the official said.

Filip Kocian, a Stockholm-based investor at the Paris-based Expansion Venture Capital, said he’s keen to invest in European startups that can protect satellites. 

He pointed to the example of the US startup True Anomaly. The company provides a variety of defensive systems, recently raising $260 million (€223 million).

“I would very much like to find something like that in Europe,” Kocian told The Arsenal. 

“There are a few teams in Europe building it. I'm sort of just either waiting for the right one or will try to stimulate some smart people to go build it,” he added. “I’m not sure if I’ve found the right combination yet.” 

Kocian said the last few years have seen a lot of new VC funds dedicated to the European space industry, spurred by investments announced by the European Investment Fund and the European Commission in 2021.

A space industry source told The Arsenal that European governments started showing much greater interest in space defense in 2025. 

The industry insider attributed that to Donald Trump’s announcement last May of a $25 billion (€21.4 billion) ‘Golden Dome’ orbital anti-missile system. It’s reminiscent of the ‘Star Wars’ idea during Ronald Reagan’s administration.

Is it any more realistic? 

“Absolutely not,” said the source, who asked not to be named for commercial reasons. “It would require hundreds of platforms in low Earth orbit,” which would in turn require prohibitive amounts of fuel.

Money allocated to the Golden Dome, though, could produce other new capabilities for the US.

“Most likely, we'll end up with a half-finished, even 10% finished system,” the source said. “Then they'll have to think of something else to do with the hardware that got put up, so it’s not just wasted money.”

That possibility is enough to push Moscow and Beijing to investigate countermeasures, the source said, which in turn puts pressure on Europe to protect its space assets.

Tomas Hrozensky, a senior researcher at the European Space Policy Institute, told The Arsenal that 2025 had seen a “seismic shift in the rationale for why Europe is ‘doing’ space,” from civilian priorities to military ones. He said the Russo-Ukrainian war has “played a big role,” but so too has the second Trump administration. 

“Satellite systems provide the critical infrastructure that all modern weaponry and communication systems rely on,” said Bleddyn Bowen, an associate professor of astropolitics at Durham University in England. “For 30-plus years, the underlying assumption was the American [satellite] systems are there to use,” he told The Arsenal.

The European Space Agency (ESA) alone is planning a record 65 missions this year, its Director General Josef Aschbacher said in a press conference on 8 January.

In September, the ESA and Arianespace, the French company that’s served as Europe’s main launch service provider since the 1980s, launched the first satellites of the new Celeste mission. It’s named for Galileo Galilei’s illegitimate daughter, Sister Maria Celeste.

Celeste aims to bolster the Galileo navigation system with a new constellation of Low Earth Orbit Positioning, Navigation and Timing (LEO-PNT) satellites.

Thanks to the lower altitude, Celeste can provide stronger signals that are less susceptible to jamming than the higher-positioned Galileo satellites. Lower orbit, however, means narrower coverage.

Satellite jamming need not be targeted at a particular asset to be a problem. 

“Jamming is a rather standard procedure in the context of military operations,” the EEAS official said. “We see Russian jammers being employed around areas where they're militarily active,” which affects everything in the jammer’s range.

“That's why we've seen all these issues with airlines. They might not necessarily be the target of that jamming,” the official told The Arsenal. “The jamming is meant to protect the military operation.”

A study by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) found that 123,000 flights in the Baltic region were affected by signal jamming in the first four months of 2025 alone.

The EU is also taking steps to prevent spoofing. That’s when an adversary uses fake sat-nav signals to mislead users on the ground.

Since July, Galileo signals have carried an anti-spoofing safeguard called Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA).  

“We are also working on a monitoring service to detect and locate interference targeting aircraft, ships and critical infrastructure,” European Commission defense and space spokesman, Thomas Regnier, told The Arsenal.

The Commission also wants to upgrade its surveillance capabilities. The EU’s existing Earth observation system, Copernicus, isn’t much tactical use for military surveillance because it takes too long for its satellites to fly over the same area twice—between one and several days.

To address this, the EU executive wants to fund the development of a new Earth Observation Governmental System (EOGS). The funding would come from a proposed €125 billion budget for “resilience, defense industry and space” in the forthcoming European Competitiveness Fund.

The Commission is also overseeing GOVSATCOM, an attempt to pool the capabilities of existing national and private-sector secure communications satellites. 

A longer-term EU plan is IRIS², which aims to deploy around 290 low- and medium-orbit satellites for secure communications and data transfer as an alternative to SpaceX’s Starlink.

The ESA will also contribute to EOGS and IRIS² capabilities through its new European Resilience from Space (ERS) program, announced in November.

The EU has also committed up to €90 million for ODIN’s EYE II, an R&D project for space-based missile early warning systems under the European Defence Fund. The project includes 38 companies and organizations in 13 European countries, led by Germany’s OHB System.

Swedish defense prime Saab has won a contract worth 1.2 billion kroner (€111.7 million) to supply artillery-locating radar services to Sweden’s armed forces.

“The new system will eventually replace the existing system, which is considered to be obsolete and has reached its technical life span,” the Swedish Defense Materiel Administration (FMV) said in the procurement notice, published on the EU’s Tenders Electronic Daily on 8 January.

While Saab is the country’s home-grown defense giant, the Swedish government did not use national security exemptions to evade EU-wide tendering. The award follows prior publication of a call for competitive tender, conducted under the EU’s Defence Procurement Directive. 

The EU’s Border and Coast Guard agency, FRONTEX, has awarded Bulgarian security firm GlobalSat a €3 million contract to develop a maritime surveillance system, based on shipborne unmanned aerial systems (UAS) with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) ability. 

The contract is part of broader efforts to deploy “integrated, interoperable and inter-connected capabilities that will enable persistent border surveillance,” according to the procurement notice.

According to the company website, GlobalSat provides thermal cameras, security sensors and contactless human body temperature measuring. Such technologies have obvious applications for an agency charged with stopping illegal border crossings, and for rescuing people in distress at sea.

In over a year, we’ve accumulated more than 2,700 subscribers focused on Ukrainian battlefield innovation. This includes Western primes, defense companies, allied governments, and Ukrainian startups. Want your messaging to target this highly-sought-after demographic?

Are you a European defense tech startup that’s trying to raise capital? 

We’d like to hear from you. Send us your 30-second elevator pitch explaining what you do, how much you’re trying to raise and what for—along with a few remarks from a senior member of your team—and we’ll consider it for this slot in our next newsletter.

Send your pitch to [email protected].