Key Points
- European aerospace giants Airbus, Thales, and Leonardo are merging their satellite businesses.
- The move is a direct response to the intense competition from Elon Musk’s Starlink.
- The new joint venture will employ 25,000 people and have revenues of €6.5 billion.
- The goal is to create a new European champion to ensure the continent’s “autonomy” in space.
Three of Europe’s biggest aerospace companies—Airbus, Thales, and Leonardo—have agreed to merge their struggling satellite manufacturing businesses in a major effort to compete with the runaway growth of rivals like Elon Musk’s Starlink. The deal, which has been in the works for months, aims to create a new, unified European champion in the increasingly competitive space industry.
The new, yet-to-be-named company will be a behemoth, employing 25,000 people across Europe with annual revenues of around €6.5 billion ($7.58 billion). Airbus will hold the largest stake at 35%, while Thales and Leonardo will each own 32.5%.
The move is a direct response to the massive disruption caused by new players like Starlink, which have upended the traditional satellite market with their vast constellations of cheap, tiny satellites in low-Earth orbit. Europe’s legacy satellite makers, which specialize in building large, complex spacecraft, have been hit hard by the new competition.
The CEOs of the three companies said the merger would help ensure “Europe’s autonomy across the strategic space domain.”
The deal still needs to be approved by European regulators, who have been hesitant to approve similar mergers in the past. But with mounting pressure from new, aggressive competitors, the companies are betting that this time will be different.
