Three European aerospace giants will reportedly merge their space businesses to create a broadband satellite company to rival Starlink.
Airbus, Leonardo, and Thales’s “Project Bromo” will launch from 2027, Reuters reported. The plan represents a departure for Europe’s top satellite makers, which have traditionally focused on large, complex spacecraft in high orbits, but the industry has been disrupted by Starlink’s small, relatively cheap, low-orbit machines.
Several other groups are trying to compete with SpaceX — two Chinese state-backed organizations and Jeff Bezos’ Project Kuiper have begun putting satellites in space — but Starlink is the runaway leader on space broadband: It has over 8,000 active satellites and an estimated million terminals, and represents over 50% of all satellites in space.