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by Topfi 12 days ago
>> The EU is even building their own Starlink equivalent.

> No they aren’t.

That’s exactly what IRIS [0] is though…

[0] https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-space/iris2-s...

1 comments

IRIS is a 290 sat constellation that doesn’t have any proven sats in orbit or a user terminal. The capacity even if they deliver what they claim on paper is not a Starlink equivalent.

The tyranny of being in MEO/LEO is that your sats are not overhead at least half of the time.

Lower capacity, higher latency, and worse coverage makes it more of a viasat improvement than anything like a starlink equivalent.

They fumbled by not trying to provide global coverage.