European companies Airbus, Thales and Leonardo intend to create a new joint space project to compete with Ilon Musk's Starlink, Reuters reports.

“Project Bromo,” named after an Indonesian volcano, involves the creation of a separate European company - a leader in satellite development modeled after Europe's leading rocket systems designer and manufacturer MBDA, owned by Airbus, Leonardo and BAE Systems.

According to the agency, the leading European satellite manufacturers have so far only considered the possibility of working together on scaling up production, with the European sector suffering heavy losses amid the rapid growth of the Starlink network.

The parties are “considering plans for such a venture” in talks that are still at an early stage. According to Leonardo head Roberto Cingolani, discussions have focused on various technical aspects.

Starlink is a global satellite communications system project. It was developed by SpaceX, a company founded by Musk. The Starlink system is designed to provide Internet access to users around the world by deploying a large number of small vehicles weighing up to 500 kilograms in Earth orbit.