ESA’s Carlo Elia, Head of Telecommunications Technologies, Products and Systems Department, and Inmarsat’s Andy Start, President of Inmarsat Global Government, sign the Govsatcom Precursor Pacis-6 contract at ESA ESTEC.

Pacis-6 will see the creation of a new open platform for pooling and sharing of commercial secure satcom services.

The Govsatcom pooling and sharing platform is intended to prepare for a ‘one-stop-shop’ for satcom procurement by European government end users and users on the global market. Customers will be able to procure government specific terminals, satcom services, and applications that fit their bespoke operational requirement and budget.

ESA’s Govsatcom Precursor consists of several Pacis projects based on public–private partnerships with major European satellite operators and service providers in the 2017-20 timeframe.

ESA’s Govsatcom Precursor projects, including Pacis-6, are the first steps to demonstrate how the European space industry can respond to a globally emerging market of secure satcom and support the future EU Govsatcom initiative; developed under the auspices of the European Commission.