ESA Contribution to EU Secure Connectivity Programme IRIS² (Sec Con) - Practical and technical information

The European Union Secure Connectivity Programme for the period 2023-2027, so-called IRIS² (EU Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite ), aims to develop and deploy innovative space solutions in response to critical EU needs and requirements in secure connectivity.
Given the long standing and successful partnership between ESA and the European Commission in the space sector, ESA has established a new programme, called ESA Contribution to EU Secure Connectivity Programme (ESA SecCon, in short) to set up development and validation activities with the selected private consortium(s) for the EU IRIS² Programme.

The ESA SecCon programme is structured in two elements:

Element 1: covering ESA Contribution to the definition, development and validation of the EU Secure Connectivity governmental infrastructure which will provide the services restricted to government authorised users requiring a high-level of security (referred to as “Hard Gov” services).
Element 2: covering activities on the validation and demonstration of commercial services or services offered to governmental users (referred to as “Light Gov” services) based on the commercial infrastructure developed by the contractor(s) delivering the EU Secure Connectivity governmental infrastructure.

At ESA Ministerial Conference of November 2022, Belgium subscribed to the ESA\SecCon\Element 1-Hardgov, but not to Element 2. This means that it is possible for Belgian entities to participate to Element 1 but not to Element 2 of ESA programme SecCon.

Additional relevant links for Secure Connectivity:

Design, development and validation of technology upstream infrastructure products for IRIS² Hardgov infrastructure: ESA SecCon Element1-Hardgov budget line
ESA call for proposals for contribution to EU Secure Connectivity (Element 1- Hardgov ) is aimed at partnerships (a prime with a contract to EU leading the project for a consortium that have a contract to the prime). Since this is related to the EU programme Secure Connectivity (IRIS²), it works differently (Intellectual property right, elligibiity conditions, co-funding levels …) from the ESA\ARTES GPL Industry-led Partnerships Projects (see ARTES). It uses a separate ESA budget line dedicated to “ESA Contribution to Secure Connecivity (Element 1)”, with a thematic strictly related to the perimeter of the EU call for IRIS² concessionaire. So only the entities that will selected by the EU for the IRIS² Concessionaire contract will be able to participate to the ESA contribution to EU Secure Connectivity (Element 1).

Design, development and validation of technology upstream space infrastructure products and services (both space and ground segments) for Secure Connectivity that are not in the IRIS² Concessionaire perimeter: ESA ARTES\SPL 4S budget line
For corresponding projects, Belgian entities should use the ESA ARTES\SPL 4S for commercial secure products but also for commercial or light-gov secure services since Belgium did not subscribe to ESA\SecCon\Element 2 programme.

Feasibility Studies and Demonstration projects for downstream applications of space to earth for secure connectivity: ESA\ARTES\SPL 4S budget line
For corresponding projects, Belgian entities should use the ESA ARTES\SPL 4S for commercial/governmental secure products/services.

Contact

Bram Van Droogenbroeck
Space Research & Applications