Following a week of speculation and rumors, the European Commission (EC) last week formally unveiled its new multi-orbit satellite constellation plan, IRIS². IRIS² was conceived almost two years ago, first proposed by Thierry Breton, former Orange CEO and French finance minister, and now EU Commissioner for Internal Market. While the announcement contained essentially no details on the network architecture, and public information on the project exists only in rough strokes, it has a set of clearly defined goals and objectives. Current projections place the constellation’s cost at around €6bn, with €2.4bn to come from EU, and €3.6bn from the European Space Agency (ESA) and private funds, though these cost estimates date from late 2020 and are almost certain to be…