GOVSATCOM (Government Satellite Communications) provides secure, resilient, and cost-effective satellite communications to critical EU and EU Member States managing security critical missions and infrastructures. Today, there is a patchwork of government and commercial systems providing secure satellite communication services to governmental, civil and defence users in Europe.
The EU space initiative GOVSATCOM creates a common marketplace for satellite communication services, connecting providers with existing capacity to authorised governmental users, in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
GOVSATCOM will evolve gradually and be complemented with IRIS² services, once available.
GOVSATCOM aims to pool existing satellite communication resources and share them with authorised European governmental actors, including from Member States that do not own governmental satellite communication capacity.
GOVSATCOM is providing satellite communication services by aggregating and linking user demand to different satellite and ground infrastructures capacities into a system-of-systems.
The common Union Pool of resources includes existing (and future) satellite communication resources such as capacity, services, assets and user equipement which are acquired by the EU through contracts or agreements with resource providers.
The satellite communication resources are then shared with authorised governmental users through the GOVSATCOM-hubs which are central to the system. The GOVSATCOM-hubs, currently under development, are settled on secured and protected sites and will be ensuring the overall capacity and service planning, as well as the security of the overall system
GOVSATCOM services
EU GOVSATCOM services provide support to security actors in crisis management, border and maritime surveillance, and management of key infrastructure, including diplomatic communication networks. Here are some of the main activities which benefit:
Satellite-based secure communications enable a wide array of use cases, ranging from ensuring secure communications in the Arctic, where there is no reliable ground system for telecommunications, to supporting the continued growth of drones and Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) applications. Anything which requires a secure, safe and reliable communication link or connection will benefit from GOVSATCOM!