Deadline Date: September 03, 2026
The European Commission has launched a call to support projects that develop mid-to-high TRL digital technologies for Earth Observation and satellite communication to strengthen the competitiveness of the European space sector.
The focus areas include favouring a competitive and sustainable European Space Sector, enabling the European Space Industry to maintain a significant share of the global connectivity market, developing advanced Earth observation and SatCom payloads, technologies and processing means both on ground and in space, fostering AI across EO and SatCom systems, enhancing the security of SatCom and EO services for ground and space commercial applications, and implementing end-to-end demonstrators for collaborative Earth Observation and satellite telecommunication solutions.
The total funding available for this call is €26,000,000, with individual project funding ranging from €5,000,000 to €10,000,000. The scope of the topic encompasses R&I on End-to-End SatCom mission capabilities, secure SatCom services, satellites as network nodes in distributed systems, radio-frequency payloads, and flexible testbeds for complex SatCom system architectures. It also includes R&I on LEO or VLEO Earth observation equipment, subsystems, applications, and services enabling low-latency operations, on-board processing to optimize EO mission performance, EO ground segment interfaces, standardized data flows, and smart multi-source EO intelligence fusion. Synergetic technologies applicable across both EO and SatCom next-generation operations are encouraged, including operational optimization, design optimization for efficiency and lifetime, advanced techniques for large system-of-systems, multi-mission operation optimization, and tip & cue demonstrations combining RF and EO through inter-satellite links.
Eligible participants include any legal entity worldwide, including those from non-associated third countries and international organisations, provided they meet the Horizon Europe Regulation and the specific call requirements.
For more information, visit European Commission.
