The European Commissioner for Defence and Space, Andrius Kubilius, stated this Friday at the Forum Europa in Brussels that in the space sector, the EU lost "the race with Elon Musk" and now needs to "catch up".
This was Andrius Kubilius's statement at a briefing organized by the New Economy Forum in the EU capital, during which he stressed the importance of the EU achieving true autonomy in defense, but also in the areas of space and telecommunications.
First, Kubilius emphasized so-called secure satellite communications, noting how, during the three years of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, Ukrainian soldiers have been observed to rely heavily on communications from Starlink, a company owned by Elon Musk.
Therefore, he recalled that the EU is developing the Iris project, a secure satellite communications system, "something absolutely necessary to be prepared for any challenge that may arise", and that it could be ready in 2029 or 2030.
And before that, in the middle of this year, he announced that "we will be ready to implement another system called Govsatcom, which unifies existing national government secure satellite communications services", something "fundamental" for the Armed Forces of the Member States.
In the space field, Kubilius said that the so-called new space industry is expanding rapidly, with new ideas, "whether related to our defense and security needs or, more generally, to civilian needs".
However, he warned about one of the problems the EU faces: launch systems. "We lost the race to Elon Musk and now we need to catch up", he remarked.
In his opinion, "we are facing a revolution in space", and in the coming decades he believed we will see advances not only in defense, but also in areas such as lunar exploration and space manufacturing.
"We need to start thinking about how to change our mindset to understand the importance of space in this century", he maintained, summing up by saying that "the 19th century was the century of trains and railroads, the 20th century was the century of airplanes and automobiles, and the 21st century will be the century of space".
