Airbus and Thales Alenia Space win IRIS, a satellite contract worth over €1.5 billion
The French Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) has awarded the IRIS programme, which is set to succeed the CSO satellites of the MUSIS programme, to Airbus Defence and Space and Thales Alenia Space (TAS) as joint prime contractors.
The announcement, made on November 9, 2026 from Toulouse, concerns the next generation of French military Earth observation satellites with extremely high resolution.
Two satellites, a ground segment and in-orbit operations
The contract covers the design, construction and testing of two satellites, as well as the control and user ground segment, maintenance and in-orbit operations.
The IRIS satellites are intended for the French armed forces and will replace the CSO (Composant Spatial Optique) satellites in order to maintain France's space-based imagery intelligence (ROIM) capability.
Like its predecessor, the system will be able to acquire images by day and by night, in the visible and infrared spectra, of any point on the globe. It will also be able to observe orbit in order to contribute to space surveillance and the characterisation of space threats.
The programme aims to ensure the continuity of this capability while improving performance, namely image quality and the time taken to make images available.
A value shared across the entire consortium through the next decade
The contract represents more than €1.5 billion for the whole consortium formed by Airbus Defence and Space and Thales Alenia Space. It will run until the end of the next decade.
The division of tasks is as follows: Airbus will supply the two satellite platforms and a significant share of the payload of the first satellite, and will be responsible for the ground segment.
TAS will for its part develop a new generation of payload for the second satellite. The group will also supply certain critical elements for the first payload and will contribute to the ground segment.
A programme open to international partners, as with MUSIS
“With this contract, Airbus Defence and Space contributes to the sovereignty and strategic autonomy of France,” said Alain Fauré, Director of Space Systems at Airbus. He added that the programme “also strengthens the French value chain in space optical imaging.”
As with the MUSIS programme, which involves eight European partners, IRIS remains open to international cooperation. Partner countries will thus be able to access the French system.
