A June 10 memorandum of understanding, with no contract value or delivery timeline, signals how Germany and its European partners may source sovereign early warning data from commercial LEO constellations rather than U.S. Space Force assets.
Europe is buying time on missile warning. On June 10, Spire Global and Diehl Defence signed a memorandum of understanding to explore how Spire's low-Earth-orbit satellite constellation could feed data into German and European missile-defense systems, particularly for tracking hypersonic threats. The agreement carries no contract value, no delivery timeline, and no fielded capability. What it signals is more interesting: a commercial space-data company and a German defense prime positioning themselves for a sovereign European early-warning architecture that does not yet exist outside government slide decks.
Spire is best known for tracking ships and aircraft. The company operates a constellation of small satellites in low Earth orbit that collects radio-frequency signals, weather and atmospheric data, automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast aircraft positions, and automatic identification system vessel pings, then packages the resulting geospatial intelligence for commercial and government customers. Missile warning is a step beyond any of those missions. Detecting the launch plume of a ballistic missile is comparatively easy from space. Tracking a maneuvering hypersonic glide vehicle through its midcourse phase, where it may coast and turn unpredictably, is the harder problem. Spire's RF and geolocation capabilities are inputs to that harder problem rather than a turnkey solution.
Diehl Defence brings the integration layer. The company is one of Germany's largest defense contractors, with established work in air defense and guided weapons. In the Spire pairing, Diehl's role is to evaluate how space-derived data could plug into existing command-and-control and weapons systems, and to be the German-side prime that European defense ministries are comfortable contracting with. The MoU is structured to let both firms respond jointly to future European missile-defense opportunities, several of which are being shaped by post-2022 shifts in the continent's security posture.
The demand context explains why the pairing is happening now. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine forced European governments to confront a tactical reality: warning time against short-range ballistic and cruise missile attack is short, and warning time against a maneuvering hypersonic threat is shorter still. The United States operates the benchmark space-based missile-warning architecture, with classified constellations feeding North American and allied command systems. Israel operates independent capabilities. Europe, by its own admission, does not yet have a sovereign equivalent, and the political appetite to depend on U.S. Space Force assets for early warning of strikes aimed at European capitals has narrowed since 2022.
That gap has produced a small but visible build-out. Programs under the European Defence Fund and bilateral initiatives in France, Italy, and Germany are exploring how LEO constellations, RF sensing, and infrared payloads could contribute to early warning, missile defense, and space situational awareness. Spire and Diehl are entering that build-out from the commercial-data side rather than the spacecraft-manufacturer side, which is a meaningful distinction. Most European missile-warning pitches to date have come from established primes building bespoke satellites. Spire's pitch is that its existing constellation and ground pipeline can be adapted to a new mission at marginal cost and faster than a dedicated platform.
The skepticism is appropriate. No commercial LEO constellation has publicly demonstrated reliable tracking of maneuvering hypersonic threats, and the U.S. Space Force has not declared the hypersonic-tracking problem solved. An MoU is a positioning move, not a delivery. Spire's commercial revenue base is concentrated in weather and data services, and entering the defense-prime world carries integration, security-clearance, and export-control requirements that do not resolve on signing day. Diehl, for its part, has missile-defense depth but limited public history with space-based data fusion at the scale being discussed.
What to watch next is whether the MoU converts into a funded feasibility study, a pilot, or a procurement line item under a European Defence Fund cycle. A first concrete signal would be a joint demonstration, a defined payload, or a contract reference in a German Federal Ministry of Defence budget document. Until then, the deal is best read as two firms angling to be the European answer to a question the continent is still working out how to ask.