Brussels: Europe’s bid to build its own sovereign satellite internet has run into a stubborn, unglamorous problem: the boxes on the ground. As the European Commission pushes ahead with IRIS2, the multi-orbit constellation meant to give the bloc secure connectivity by the end of the decade, it has opened a fresh call for proposals to develop cheaper user terminals, the antennas and modems that let governments and citizens actually tap the network. The deadline for submissions falls on 26 August 2026, and the move quietly acknowledges that a constellation is worthless if the equipment to use it costs too much. IRIS2, short for Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite, is among the most ambitious things the EU has attempted in space. Its initial investment is estimated at 10.6 billion euros, and the system is designed to deliver commercial broadband alongside secure communications for European governments. The constellation will require thirteen Ariane 64 launches, ten for its low-Earth-orbit shell and three for the medium-Earth-orbit layer, with a critical design review pencilled in for early 2028 and satellites launching across 2029 and 2030. The grant call for terminals reflects a lesson learned from commercial rivals. Constellations such as Starlink succeeded not only because of the satellites overhead but because the company drove down the price of the dish on the roof to the point where ordinary consumers would buy one. Europe, by contrast, has world-class space engineering but a fragmented supply chain for the consumer and institutional hardware that turns orbital capacity into usable bandwidth. Without affordable terminals, IRIS2 risks becoming a strategic asset that few can afford to switch on. The stakes are partly industrial and partly geopolitical. Brussels wants IRIS2 to underpin defence readiness by 2030, providing communications that do not depend on American or Chinese infrastructure. That sovereignty argument has grown louder as Europe confronts a more dangerous neighbourhood and a less predictable transatlantic partner. A secure, EU-owned network for crisis management, border surveillance and military coordination is no longer a luxury but a stated objective, and the terminals are the last mile of that ambition. Yet the project carries real risks. Its timeline is tight, its budget large, and the history of European space megaprojects is littered with delays and cost overruns. The decision to deliver a simplified first version by 2029 before completing the full system suggests planners are already hedging against slippage. Coordinating launches, satellites, ground stations and now an affordable terminal ecosystem across multiple member states and contractors is a formidable management challenge, and each dependency is a potential bottleneck. There is also the question of whether the market will respond. The grant aims to industrialise terminal production, but doing so profitably requires volume, and volume requires demand that may not materialise until the constellation is live. That chicken-and-egg dynamic is precisely why public money is being deployed: to de-risk the hardware so that, when IRIS2 finally switches on, the means to connect to it already exist at a sensible price. For all the uncertainty, the terminal call signals a maturing of Europe’s space strategy. The bloc is no longer thinking only about getting satellites into orbit but about the full chain that makes connectivity real, from launch vehicle to rooftop antenna. Whether IRIS2 delivers on its promise will depend less on the elegance of its orbital design than on mundane questions of cost, manufacturing and adoption. Europe has the engineering. The harder test, as ever, is turning capability into something people can actually plug in and use.