Airbus, Thales, and Leonardo – three giants in the aerospace industry in Europe – are researching a plan to establish a new joint venture in space to compete with the private space company SpaceX, owned by billionaire Elon Musk.
Airbus, Thales, and Leonardo are researching plans to establish a new space joint venture. (Image source: finimize.com).
According to three unnamed sources, the plan aims to establish a project named “Project Bromo”, where Bromo refers to a volcano in Indonesia. This project aims to create a “giant” specialized in researching, developing, and manufacturing satellites and operating independently in Europe. Such a company will be based on the operational model of the missile manufacturing group MBDA, which is owned by Airbus, Leonardo, and BAE Systems.
Also, according to the aforementioned sources, although discussions are still in the early stages, the parties have progressed to topics related to the structure of a new joint venture, in which all three parties will contribute to the joint venture.
Meanwhile, in response to the press on the sidelines of an event in Rome, Mr. Roberto Cingolani – the CEO of the Italian aerospace, defense, and security company Leonardo – stated that the negotiations include discussions on technical issues and confirm the expected structure of the joint venture based on the MBDA model.
At the same time, the European aircraft manufacturing group Airbus and the French defense group Thales have not provided specific information. For a long time, all three groups have only indicated that they are considering collaboration to establish a larger cooperative model in the context of the satellite research and manufacturing sector, which has been suffering heavy losses due to the rapid development of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network.
The plan to establish the above joint venture reflects the efforts to revive the aerospace and defense industry in Europe, which is facing significant challenges due to fierce competition.
