The project is designed to provide the Bundeswehr with a secure and autonomous system comparable in power to the satellite Internet network developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Negotiations between the two industry groups are still at a preliminary stage, but they are taking place in the context of a significant increase in government spending, the newspaper writes. Berlin has announced a €35 billion plan for military space technology to reduce dependence on non-European suppliers, primarily the US.
According to the coordinator for space issues of one of the units of the German armed forces, Armin Fleischmann, the project will be focused primarily on the eastern flank of NATO. Germany is actually strengthening its military presence in Lithuania, where it is planned to create a permanent brigade of 5 thousand soldiers. The technical characteristics of the program have already been determined and the competent authorities are working to launch a tender, the publication says.
FT notes that for Rheinmetall, which has historically specialized in the production of traditional heavy weapons (tanks, artillery, ammunition), space is becoming a new direction of development. At the end of 2025, the company won the first major contract worth €2 billion for the production of radar satellites in cooperation with the Finnish company Iceye. The radar technology allows surveillance even in clouds, in bad weather or at night and is considered particularly suitable for military purposes, the newspaper writes.
