Thales, Airbus, and Leonardo join forces to create a new European space champion, positive news for European telcos, because a sovereign play requires sovereign partnerships and local options.
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Summary
Thales, Airbus, and Leonardo have joined forces to create a new European space champion. This announcement shows why space is sovereign territory, the role of consolidation in a tough market, and the depth of the complexity of the nonterrestrial network (NTN) ecosystem.
Key facts about Thales, Airbus, and Leonardo’s joint venture
- The new company will count 25,000 employees and a total turnaround of €6.5bn and is expected to be operational by 2027, subject to regulatory approval.
- Airbus will provide its Space Systems and Space Digital Business units; Leonardo will provide its Space Division, including shares in Telespazio and Thales Alenia Space; and Thales will provide its shares in Thales Alenia Space, Telespazio, and Thales SESO.
- The new company will provide a comprehensive portfolio of technologies and end-to-end solutions in the realms of space infrastructure and services with the exclusion of launchers: it provides technologies and components to launchers.
The sovereign angle of this initiative is clear. The new company plays within Europe’s need to strengthen its space autonomy and expand its strategic competence in the sector. The goal of being a trusted partner for the region to implement national sovereign space programs is set out for everyone to see. From there, the idea is to have size and expertise to export technologies, components, and services abroad to serve those regions with limited space knowledge that may be hesitant to shift to a US- or China-based ecosystem.
From a global perspective, it is easy to imagine additional synergies and collaborations with other players such as Eutelsat and SES (which are already using some of Thales Alenia’s satellites) but also with the planned Iris2 constellation. Other providers, such as SpaceX or AWS Kuiper, will see this as a potential new competitor armed with experience and willing to gain key contracts in the nascent European space economy. With scale and the need to have satellites serving multiple geographies, a stronger European space ecosystem could further complicate their plans. For the new joint venture, though the company has had a strong track record in geostationary orbit (GEO) satellites, its challenge will now be supporting low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites and players catching up with the new wave of LEO players spearheaded by Starlink.
Why should telcos care?
Serving enterprises and governments with reliable and sovereign connectivity is an emerging opportunity that represents a $14.4bn enterprise LEO broadband market. But telcos are just moving into this space, and they must understand that the NTN ecosystem is much broader than the traditional telco one. As telcos strike partnerships and refine new strategic bets, it is important for them to understand the extent and influence of such an ecosystem. Specialized players such as this new joint venture present good partnership opportunities because they draw clear boundaries around what services and revenue they want to target. These are also companies that already have a strong presence in key sectors such as government, defense, and military, all areas where the most forward-looking telcos are trying to expand their relevance. There may be some direct competition in certain government contracts, particularly with those telcos such as Orange Business that may want to take a more direct system integrator role in the defense market. Overall, however, this is positive news for telcos, because a sovereign play requires sovereign partnerships and local options.
The way this company has been created also offers lessons for the telco community. Consolidation has been a constant in the NTN ecosystem, a sign that space is a complicated riddle. Earlier in October, Lynk announced a partnership with OmniSpace. This is another example of a long list of deals such as Eutelsat and OneWeb and SeS and Intelsat. There is need for scale and significant investment capabilities to succeed in space, and telcos should expect only a handful of constellations to really make it: constellations aligned to the three main regions of North America, Western Europe, and Asia. The challenge of making it in this market and the failure of a few companies can also be seen in recent spectrum deals: Echostar sold its AWS-4 and H-block spectrum licenses to Starlink for $17bn, and AST SpaceMobile entered a deal of $550m with Ligado for up to 40MHz of L-band MSS spectrum in the US and Canada and 5MHz in the 1670–1675MHz band in the US.
Why should European sovereign verticals care?
From a sovereignty perspective, this move couldn’t be more timely. In our current political context of increasing global tensions, relying on foreign infrastructure for critical communications is a risk that no sovereign vertical can afford. Europe has watched for years as American companies, particularly SpaceX’s Starlink, have dominated the LEO constellation landscape, creating an uncomfortable dependency on foreign infrastructure for critical communications. The announcement directly highlights the goal to address this strategic gap by pooling Europe’s most sophisticated satellite capabilities under one banner, creating a champion capable of delivering truly autonomous NTN solutions and services.
The creation of this joint venture is a masterstroke that fundamentally reshapes Europe’s position in the global space economy and addresses the critical needs of sovereign verticals such as defense, emergency services, transport, and utilities. As European nations grapple with digitalization supported by the principles of trust, reliability, effectiveness, and security, having a homegrown satellite network with control over digital infrastructure becomes a cornerstone of policy.
Effectively, the new venture accelerates European leadership in space and, as a result, delivers ubiquitous outdoor coverage that complements terrestrial networks. The reliability implications are more profound and multifaceted. Not only does it ensure continuity of service even in remote or crisis-hit areas, it also eliminates single points of failure with a resilient nonterrestrial backup network.
The timing coincides beautifully with the EU’s IRIS 2 program, which aims to create a European satellite constellation for secure connectivity. We are also observing government moves toward innovative nationwide critical communications solutions. Having a unified European space champion to deliver on these ambitious programs provides the resilient backbone necessary to make the digitalization of critical communications systems in European sovereign verticals a reality rather than just an aspirational point in the government agendas.
Appendix
Further reading
“T-Mobile For Business’ SuperMobile officially opens the era of network slicing competition” (September 2025)
Space To Grow: Enterprise LEO Forecast 2025–30 (September 2025)
Enterprise LEO Forecast 2025–30 (August 2025)
Critical Communications Broadband Adoption – Heatmap – 2025 (April 2025)
Critical Communications Broadband Report – 2024 Analysis (December 2024)
Author
Pablo Tomasi, Principal Analyst, Future Wireless
Ildefonso de la Cruz, Senior Principal Analyst
