The European Commission announced Aug. 7 it completed negotiations with the SpaceRISE industrial consortium on the IRIS² constellation, a milestone known formally as Rendezvous 1. The agreement signed between the commission and the consortium will allow work to proceed on the constellation. In the announcement, the European Commission said it was adding 66 satellites to that high-LEO shell. Earlier in planning for IRIS², the commission proposed that the constellation would cost just 6 billion euros. The European Commission, in its statement, acknowledged that “an additional investment in the program budget” will be required for the constellation.