Starlink Lands Pentagon Contract To Provide Internet To Ukraine
SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service has now officially been enrolled in the war in Ukraine. The Department of Defense signed a contract with the company to provide internet services for Ukraine in its fight against the Russian Federation.
According to Reuters, the contract was awarded to Elon Musk's company on June 1. The specifics of the contract are classified in an effort to obfuscate how exactly Starlink's satellites and subsequent services will be used in the fight. It is also unknown how much money was involved in the deal.
Undoubtedly the upgraded internet services will be of a huge strategic advantage to troops on the ground controlling drones and other weapons systems, but also for the people of Ukraine, who have been subject to repeated internet jamming attempts by invading Russian forces.
However, this is not the first time Starlink and SpaceX have been involved in the fight. Last year, the companies caused controversy for threatening to cut off services to Ukraine unless the U.S. Department of Defense footed the bill.
High speed internet for the fight against Russia
Specifically, SpaceX's president Gwynne Shotwell caused a PR and policy disaster when she initially floated the idea, and openly admitted that SpaceX previously limited Ukraine's access to the internet services that Starlink provides.
Now that the Pentagon and Uncle Sam are picking up the tab for Ukraine's internet access, it's unlikely that internet services in the conflict will be interrupted in the future. Even in the unlikely event that Russian forces attempt to disable Starlink satellites, there are several thousand satellites in orbit. The Starlink satellites themselves are launched into geostationary orbit, meaning it's locked in space above a certain point on Earth by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets.
Starlink touts that its satellites provide low-latency and high speed services to people connecting to its satellites, which should be of great assistance to Ukrainian and NATO forces involved in the conflict. The news was just announced, so there will likely be more information coming out as the days go on, but unrestricted, high-speed internet access to Ukraine is unequivocally a good move by both the Pentagon and Starlink.