Europe’s future competitiveness in space and digital markets does not just depend on launching satellites or producing more data. It depends on how effectively we use what we already have. Yet for decades, Earth Observation (EO) in Europe has been held back by a quiet but costly problem: fragmentation.
Across national agencies, research centres, and private missions, ground-segment infrastructures have often been built in silos. Each mission reinvents its systems, each operator creates bespoke solutions, and each dataset becomes locked in its own environment. The result is redundancy, inefficiency, and barriers to collaboration. This practice is unsustainable. And as Daniel Novak from ADS highlights, it is a systemic challenge that has long needed to be tackled:
“Over the past decades, we noticed that in every observation program, the ground segment consistently includes the same core functions: mission programming, payload data processing, mission control, supervision, and so forth. However, we also observed that each time, teams were redeveloping the entire architecture from scratch, even though that’s not where the real value lies. We realized it would be far more efficient if we could all agree on a standardized way to organize the architecture, allowing everyone to focus on enhancing the specific functions rather than reinventing the interfaces.”
(Daniel Novak, Domino-E interview)In a global EO economy increasingly dominated by agile commercial providers and cloud-based services, Europe cannot afford to lose time and resources on rebuilding infrastructure that should already be interoperable.
Federation, Not Centralisation
Domino-E responds to this challenge with a different philosophy: federation. Instead of attempting to centralise all ground-segment functions under one authority, the project develops modular “Dominoes” — building blocks with clear responsibilities, interfaces, and reusability across missions.
“Each building block is a Domino with clearly defined responsibility and interfaces. You can build your ground segment by gathering Dominoes from a catalog. You can choose a Domino, adapt a Domino or even build your own Domino if the catalog doesn’t fit your needs.”
(Matthieu Vansteene, Domino-E interview)This modular approach means missions no longer need to start from scratch. Operators can select Dominoes — data ingestion, processing, cataloguing, dissemination — from a shared catalogue and integrate them seamlessly.
The effect is more than just technical convenience. Interoperability across providers reduces costs, accelerates deployment, and broadens opportunities for collaboration. And because the architecture supports both cloud-native and on-premise deployments, it balances flexibility with sovereignty: sensitive data can remain under national or institutional control, while still fitting into a federated ecosystem. In other words, silos are dismantled, but sovereignty is preserved.
Why Federation Matters for Sovereignty and Competitiveness
The European Union has been clear about the stakes. The EU Space Strategy for Security and Defence(2023) explicitly highlights the importance of resilient ground-segment capabilities for strategic autonomy. Without control over how data is managed, processed, and shared, Europe risks dependence on external actors — whether commercial monopolies or geopolitical competitors. Domino-E answers this concern. By federating ground-segment services, it ensures that Europe’s EO data remains accessible on European terms. This does not mean rejecting international cooperation — Europe remains a global leader through Copernicus and ESA missions — but it does mean being able to scale and manage infrastructures independently, without duplication or dependence.
Federation also carries direct economic consequences. Today, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Europe face high barriers when entering the EO service market. Every mission’s bespoke ground segment makes integration costly and technically complex. By contrast, a modular and interoperable approach lowers entry barriers, enabling SMEs and startups to plug into a shared ecosystem. This dynamic ties directly into the EU’s SME Strategy for a sustainable and Digital Europe, which calls for removing obstacles to market entry and ensuring smaller players can compete in strategic sectors. With Domino-E, the same principle applies to EO: the ecosystem becomes larger, more open, and more competitive.
Finally, speed matters. Faster deployment cycles mean European EO can respond more quickly to new policy priorities — from monitoring the European Green Deal’s climate objectives to managing natural disasters. In this way, federation is not just a technical architecture but a lever for policy responsiveness and global competitiveness.
Conclusion: Europe’s Next Leap
Domino-E is not starting from zero. It builds on the earlier Domino-X project, which laid the conceptual groundwork for modular architecture. What distinguishes Domino-E is its ambition: implementing federation across partners, testing it with operational services, and aligning it explicitly with EU strategic objectives.
By doing so, Domino-E is already pointing toward Europe’s next leap in EO: a federated, modular architecture that strengthens sovereignty, lowers costs, and accelerates innovation. If successful, it could become a model not only for Earth Observation, but for other strategic infrastructures where Europe seeks autonomy — from secure communications to space traffic management.
In short, Domino-E offers Europe a pathway from wasted duplication to shared strength. It shows how federation can be an engine for sovereignty and competitiveness alike — ensuring that Europe not only keeps pace with global trends but sets its own standards for the future.