I havnt seen a post here about Musk apparently disabling starlink to stop a Ukraine attack on Russia ships in the early part of the war.
Isnt spaceX partially funded by the US government - but still a private company?
Just curious to the ramifications if this is true.
I just saw something where Musk claims it wasn’t disabled but not turned on when requested, since they viewed that as taking part in the war to do so.
Which I don’t quite understand, but I don’t understand the technology, because I thought they were providing starlink to the Ukrainians already?
I think the Ukrainians may have wanted the coverage extended to facilitate the attack and that’s what they refused to do.
From what I remember, is that StarLink was initially providing the service free of charge, and then starting to want UK to pay, when they didnt - the service got turned off.
From what I remember, is that StarLink was initially providing the service free of charge, and then starting to want UK to pay, when they didnt - the service got turned off.
Pentagon has been paying for Starlink. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/pentagon-buys-starlink-ukraine-statement-2023-06-01/
That would make StarLink a government contractor in this situation?
I dont think government contractors get to decide when to turn on/off services.
They weren’t being paid when they turned it off. And even now it isn’t clear what the terms of the contract with the DoD are.
Musk and SpaceX were in an interesting spot. They offered Starlink services to Ukraine and its people fore free for humanitarian purposes. They didn’t really sign up for the UK military using the system for offensive missions. At that point, and maybe even before, does a commercial system like Starlink become a legitimate military target? But there are other questions based on the articles that came out, like how did Starlink know they were being used for specific military operations? How much coordination was there between them and the UK and US military?
I mean if StarLink was a contractor from the DOD it appears they were aware of it being used for military reasons, maybe not the specific ones, but they were fine with taking the bag.
I couldnt imagine Motorola or someone winning a government contract for satellite phones in the early 2000s, and then turning off features because they were being used overseas. (before smart phones/wifi everywhere a lot of government contractors/employees used StarTech phones because they were one of the few services that you could get reception in the DC metros in 1995-2000ish)
i’m imagining the CEOs at lockheed or raytheon hitting the remote kill switch when one of their products is airborne over afghanistan, saying “sorry, we aren’t really comfortable with this particular use of our tech.”
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Did anyone actually check when the DOD contract was signed? The only thing that I’ve seen that it wasn’t until June 2023.
Like others have said, they were initially providing the service for free for humanitarian purposes.
If you send cell phones for refugees to contact their families and it goes instead to support military operations, is that ok? What if you were told that those phones were being used for IEDs?
i’m imagining the CEOs at lockheed or raytheon hitting the remote kill switch when one of their products is airborne over afghanistan, saying “sorry, we aren’t really comfortable with this particular use of our tech.”
First 7 or 8 minutes pretty scathing attack on Musk’s actions.
i’m imagining the CEOs at lockheed or raytheon hitting the remote kill switch when one of their products is airborne over afghanistan, saying “sorry, we aren’t really comfortable with this particular use of our tech.”
Those are explicitly military contractors, though, with military contractor culture. StarLink is Silicon Valley culture. There are other examples, like employees from Microsoft, Apple, and Google being activists against lethal military use of technologies from those companies.
I’m not defending Musk, I haven’t read the details yet. Just pointing out there is precedent to Silicon Valley antipathy towards lethal use of tech.
The StarLink “disruption” is like many things “Silicon Valley” just making the stuff easy to use. The DoD and others have plenty of other satellite comms stuff, including in civilian bands (ViaSat). The StarLink ease-of-use and speed is just a great combo. I’ve seen U.S. warfighters using it for silly stuff like online training (with VPN) because StarLink is easier to use than hardwired military internet access.
On a radio talk show they were discussing these details which are from a book that has yet to be released. The story was described as the Ukrainian military conducting a drone attack against the Russian fleet in Crimea using Starlink. Musk was worried that, if the attack was successful, Putin would retaliate with nukes so Musk ordered Starlink to be shut down. (Don’t know if that was temporary). Musk didn’t want to be responsible for this action and decided Starlink should not be used for direct military attacks.
Once the book is released I’m sure see will get the details.
On a radio talk show they were discussing these details which are from a book that has yet to be released. The story was described as the Ukrainian military conducting a drone attack against the Russian fleet in Crimea using Starlink. Musk was worried that, if the attack was successful, Putin would retaliate with nukes so Musk ordered Starlink to be shut down. (Don’t know if that was temporary). Musk didn’t want to be responsible for this action and decided Starlink should not be used for direct military attacks.
Once the book is released I’m sure see will get the details.
I’ve heard a couple of people say the issue was extending Starlink to cover Crimea (and the Black Sea?) as the operation was in progress. No idea why that wouldn’t have been worked out beforehand. Maybe they thought it was worked out until Musk intervened?
Great questions but the details weren’t discussed. Hard to imagine an attack was underway and he shut down Starlink. Seems more likely he became aware of the plan and shut it down or refused to extend the coverage to Crimea.
I guess now I’ll have to read the book when it’s released.
I suspect he was less worried about nukes and more worried that Russia might blast some of the Starlink cluster out of orbit.
There are a range of things that can happen short of that.
Most military electronic warfare systems, e.g. jammers, are designed around known military frequency bands. If you start using civilian frequencies for unambiguously military operations, you open up civilian bands to military counter-measures. Assuming the Russians are “agile” enough to modify their counter-measure equipment to operate on StarLink frequencies. And that threatens humanitarian use of StarLink, e.g. using it to organize civilian evacuation or medical response in contested regions. And StarLink would become more of a target to military-grade cyberattack as well. An analogy is how humanitarian groups really don’t like it when the CIA tries to have spies join humanitarian organizations for cover. You risk blowing your humanitarian neutrality completely.
Also StarLink has a responsibility to its employees. Your Raytheon and Lockheed employees who have insider knowledge about military systems are going to be somewhat protected. They’re not going to advertise their detailed positions on LinkedIn. But StarLink employees may have advertised on LinkedIn that they’re the “Head of Network Operations for Eastern Europe”, etc. They can become a target for exploitation (or worse).
There’s a whole world of stuff underneath the surface hot take.
Again, not defending Musk with little knowlege of his actual motivations.
but not ones that would impact Starlink outside of Russia / Ukraine.
Inside is arguably enough. When civilian satellite or terrestrial frequency bands get shut down that affects Ukraine’s ability to conduct humanitarian operations. That’s significant.
I also think that militarizing civilian frequency bands is a Pandora’s box. I would be surprised if there’s not already a “break glass in case of emergency” set of plans in case military comms all go down hard, but if the world’s militaries all decide from day 1 of a conflict that all civilian frequencies are fair game both for use or disruption on that’s not a great thing for the world, arguably.
Actually your satellite shooting down scenario would be assymetric warfare in the favor of the West. There are over 5000 Starlink satellites and counting. And I presume the cost of shooting one down greatly exeeds the cost of building and launching a new ones. SpaceX can put up around 50 per launch. Of course Musk would want to reimbursed for each one shot down…
On a radio talk show they were discussing these details which are from a book that has yet to be released. The story was described as the Ukrainian military conducting a drone attack against the Russian fleet in Crimea using Starlink. Musk was worried that, if the attack was successful, Putin would retaliate with nukes so Musk ordered Starlink to be shut down. (Don’t know if that was temporary). Musk didn’t want to be responsible for this action and decided Starlink should not be used for direct military attacks.
Once the book is released I’m sure see will get the details.
I suspect he was less worried about nukes and more worried that Russia might blast some of the Starlink cluster out of orbit.
Highly unlikely, there are thousands of Starlink satellites already in orbit. The cost to send them to orbit is minimal compared to the cost of using some type of missile weapon to take them out.
The reality is that SpaceX has pretty much singlehandedly sunk the Russian space program. If he’s some kind of Russian sympathizer he has a funny way of showing it. Both SpaceX and Tesla are pretty much tailor made to cause pain to the Russian economy.
Starlink also represents an existential threat to authoritarian regimes. Eventually, satellite networks like Starlink will be able to communicate with much smaller devices like cell phones. That means it may be possible for citizens to communicate or receive information from the outside world. That is the last thing any closed society wants.
but not ones that would impact Starlink outside of Russia / Ukraine.
Inside is arguably enough. When civilian satellite or terrestrial frequency bands get shut down that affects Ukraine’s ability to conduct humanitarian operations. That’s significant.
It’s not significant at all from a Starlink business / money making perspective.
Actually your satellite shooting down scenario would be assymetric warfare in the favor of the West. There are over 5000 Starlink satellites and counting. And I presume the cost of shooting one down greatly exeeds the cost of building and launching a new ones. SpaceX can put up around 50 per launch. Of course Musk would want to reimbursed for each one shot down…
They don’t have to shoot down every Starlink satellite in the cluster or even a majority. They just have to blow up one and create enough debris to trash the orbit that Starlink uses.
Now that being said, Musk probably also realizes that having a contract with the Pentagon is sort of like being nationalized, for lack of a better word. A potential attack on Starlink is then a little closer to being considered an attack on the U.S.
Yeah I’m just guessing at his motivations. But despite Russia’s bluster, an attack on a satellite, while unlikely, is a much smaller escalation than a nuke.
I don’t think that would work. The satellites are cheap and plentiful enough that losing some from debris strikes wouldn’t be very disruptive. It’s like trying to shoot down a stealth fighter with flak. Sure it’s possible but it’s a big sky so the probability is low. If you’re talking about a billion dollar satellite or space station, then yeah a low probability event is a huge problem.
It’s not significant at all from a Starlink business / money making perspective.
Yeah, I’m operating under the assumption that there’s more than monetary consideration in play. Ethics, safety, humanitarian credibility. Not so much Musk himself, but he depends on the key talent that may operate with other-than-monetary considerations.
He is mostly correct. Shooting down one or two Starlink spacecraft won’t make a major dent in their operations. The constellation is actually very good at autonomously dodging debris. It sort of has to be (much of what they are dodging are other Starlinks.) On the flip side Russia would get a lot of international pushback for creating orbital debris. It doesn’t stay in the narrow orbital altitudes of Starlink and would spread throughout low Earth orbit. That creates potential hazards for Russian and Chinese spacecraft including their space stations.
The better way to attack a mega constellation like Starlink is using cyber.
https://www.space.com/starlink-russian-cyberattacks-ramp-up-efforts-elon-musk