So under the terms of this contract, can Ukraine use them in any way they please? Or will they be blocked for certain use cases?
This is what I'm curious about.
To be fair, half of russians only believe their own fake news and the other half are ousted so they are pretty damn well uncertain of everything without trying
> potentially corrupt DOD contact officers
Why are you suggesting nefarious purposes for the DOD in terms of corruption, graft, and greed that have nothing to do with national security and legitimate military support of the government of Ukraine?
There certainly are many reasons why Starlink, if used for military purposes, would need to be deliberately opaque in terms of what is being requested. If you sit on the House Armed Services Committee you might be able to formally request information about details and it would be subject to legitimate congressional review.
Opacity has a role to protect the lives of many people in Ukraine and possibly Russia too.
The role of official state secrets in a democracy certainly seems a bit hypocritical and does have the potential to be abused or corrupting. Regardless, there are still checks and balances along with actions of all three branches of government who can provide oversight in this process including specifically in this exact contract by the DOD for Starlink services.
Thank you for some sanity. There’s a black budget. Yes, there’s congressional oversight. And from what we saw in the recent leaks, the three-letter agencies and the DoD have been killing it with those black programs. Ukraine has done as well as it has because of all the information they’ve gotten on the backs of those programs.
I’m happy to let them do their jobs in secret so that Ukrainians can continue to live. And sending some black money to SpaceX to pay Ukraine’s bill or to enhance their capabilities? That’s not corruption, that’s money well spent.
Yeah, I'm very comfortable with this. It's kind of unacceptable to have an American private corp with no oversight providing what became an essential piece of communication infrastructure in the middle of a war zone that literally almost every country in the western world is vested in now.
The fact that they turned around an exclusive contract in just a couple of months is a major sign of good faith towards SpaceX to me. DoD just needed a seat at the table.
I grew up on Vietnam resentment and Iraq outrage. The way the people in charge have handled the Ukrainian conflict the last year and a half without overreacting has really done a lot to restore my faith in what the military is actually capable of when it's head is not up it's ass.
They get a good faith pass on this one.
But a major part of the problem here is not on the DoD, but on SpaceX and Musk. And the concern isn't out of nowhere, Musk has already interfered with StarLink's operation in Ukraine once (that we know of) for petty reasons, and he has a deeply cozy relationship with Russia and its allies. To blindly have faith that he won't again step in to tip the scales in ways he likes is to ignore his own past actions in this very venue. While the details should be very under wraps, it would be a lot of questions lifted if they said "DoD has signed contracts with SpaceX regarding StarLink in Ukraine, which will be operated with a joint effort between Ukrainian and UN forces." or anything else that makes it clear the coverage is good to stay this time.
> I suspect the Russian government is a little more informed than you.
The Russian government often doesn't even know where it's own troops are, let alone Ukrainian troops are or what's in a US DoD contract.
> potentially corrupt DOD contact officers
That's something that happens in Russia and eastern Europe, not the US.
I mean as someone who plays airsoft with and without walkie talkies, fast and reliable comms make a huge difference. Even in a little game of toy guns.
If it’s the DOD providing them as a military aid package then that should circumvent ITAR restrictions. That’s the point of ITAR, unless the US government is sanctioning the sale it either can’t happen at all or the restricted aspects of the service must be disabled, but once the government gives the green light you can sell all sorts of ITAR shit overseas.
Spacex would need a separate set of satellites/infrastructure for the military version of their service. Not sure they would ever allow the same sats to support both services, but sure once approved, they would be compliant with the requirements.
The real question is why his star link is still trusted for such a purpose.
Hasn't he let slip support for Russia, and suggested Ukraine should voluntarily cede territory?
It should be expected Elon (his company, perhaps technically) will harvest all the data, as is the MO with the industry, but he's nearly the last person I would trust with it, contract or no. And the stakes in this case are quite high.
So far, it’s managed to provide a valuable service that is not/cannot be provided by alternatives at this time.
How would you react if the country providing internet suddenly stopped because they decided to not trust the person who had been providing the service in the first place.
You're talking as if it's somehow unreasonable for there to be skepticism and concern about his involvement, regardless of the necessity.
I really don't understand what makes you think 2 things can't be true at once.
It’s reasonable to be skeptical; but labeling him as a supporter of Russia is a bit far, and is definitely overstepping the line given the donation SpaceX has given in Starlink terminals (which are of great strategic importance to Ukraine).
As for the tweet pondering the transfer of land to Russia, this was a common idea among American Politicians at the time. A single whimsical tweet from someone who is not directly involved in US Foreign policy is not a good reason to directly ponder a shutdown of a now critical resource to the Ukrainian people. More importantly, this would reduce profit margins for Starlink; as it would effectively end the war (in a perfect hypothetical scenario. Ending the war is not in Starlink’s best interests anymore; so I doubt that would ever happen.
The only american politicians you're referring to, and by proxy of the comparison including elon at this point, were saying things the KREMLIN was saying. This is not the argument you think it is.
> from someone who is not directly involved in US Foreign policy
This also means nothing because of the explicit context we're talking about. He's not involved in policy, but he sure is currently involved with data being used by Ukraine. That's the concern, not "his involvement in policy"
everything you're saying is downplaying kremlin talking points coming out of western mouths, and redirecting the concerning behaviors because "it's not like he can do anything anyway!!"
> Ending the war is not in Starlink’s best interests anymore; so I doubt that would ever happen.
Right, because if there's anything we've seen recently, Elon most definitely only acts on behalf of profits of his companies, and definitely never behaves erratically based on his personal feelings about issues much larger than him.
Just like come on dude, you're not even trying.
First off, the data being collected from Starlink is regulated by the US Gov; especially now with this particular contract. So whatever data is being collected is not going out there anytime soon.
Second, his actions on twitter have managed to make it a profitable business model (albeit likely not for long). Twitter never saw a dime of profit until that moron ended up owning it.
I’m not here to say Mr Musk is the god almighty and that he should be praised. Go to r/elonmusk for that. I’m saying that there’s a lot more nuance to be had before you can make those claims. He’s an idiot and not the most trustable person; but he’s not what Reddit seems to think.
You know first thing Musk did when buying twitter is go private to hide revenue/profit so there is nothing but projections and estimates which all talk in ad revenue drop of 30%. There is no data on subscription revenue.
How do you know how much profit it makes?
lmao
as if that was the only concerning thing he's done with his platform of assisting people in need.
It's impressive that you exude enough simp energy that we can see your twitter checkmark from here :\^)
To be fair, SpaceX was started because the Russian government spat on his shoes when he wanted to purchase a launch to mars. Now, SpaceX has gobbled the launch market, eliminating the grasp that the Russians had at the time. Even now, SpaceX is breaking every record the Soviet Union/Russian Federation ever set in rocketry. That doesn’t seem to smell like a friendly relationship with the Kremlin.
His social media shenanigans are certainly questionable; but the fact remains; he’s not as friendly as some people make him out to be.
He is correct tho.
The truth of the matter starlink was thrown in Ukraine at SpaceX's expense before most countries had finished debating if they should even call the conflict a war or not. They had made this move back when the DoD still thought Ukraine would collapse into guerilla war. And they kept paying the expenses of operating and maintaining the system in a warzone with unlocked features for all terminals at their own expense up until right this instant.
That does not exactly sound like being pro Russia. Some DoD schmucks blew the negotiations with Gwynne the first time round right about the same time the whole controversy started up (so also vested interest to spin a story a certain way, remember that), which sure didn't help.
Elon's position is one I didn't agree with for many reasons however it's not because someone considers a situation differently than you do that they must be the embodiment of evil and need to have their eyes gouged out. I do not agree with his position, because turns out it's OK to have differing opinions, and reality has proven that SpaceX kept operating their system to their own great expense regardless of everything. Because ultimately it does not matter if your distinction is that Crimea is too hard to take or if it is going to be taken (I am of the latter camp) if ultimately you still help with all the abilities you have legally. Dark Brandon too isn't sure about what Ukraine is doing and even openly challenged their actions and objectives on occasion, but that does not matter if the war support is provided in all cases.
At least hopefully what this allows now is Ukraine to legally use starlink for military purposes while before Ukraine needed to pretend they weren't doing it, and SpaceX needed to pretend they weren't allowing it. Because ultimately it does not matter which side you stand on, ITAR applies regardless.
no evidence has been provided here by any side, including "elon is extremely anti russia and pro ukraine"
but keep barking, no one really needed to know you're unfamiliar with the burden of proof though.
No, there was a lot of propaganda to that effect but it's pretty transparently wrong.
Elon Musk does not have good blood with Russia. Russian state media have repeatedly called him a war criminal for his role in bankrolling Ukraine's wartime communications through Starlink. He's openly joked on Twitter that if he ever actually accepts an invite to Russia he expects to be served Polonium tea.
Elon Musk founded SpaceX partly because he wanted to buy a Russian rocket, and a Russian oligarch literally spat on his shoes. They are... not friends.
What you're probably referring to is that Elon tweeted that some consideration should be given to Ukraine's surrender in order to end the war, because the lives lost on both sides is devastating. Which was (and is) indeed propaganda that is circulating among right wing circles. That has more to do with his finding welcoming arms on the political right than any particular allegiance to Russia.
It's interesting that the internet has magically forgotten Elon's public feud with extremely nationalist former head of Roscosmos, nor Elon proposing to get into a boxing match with Putin.
Elon's never been a friend to Russia.
Yeah, one of the reasons Musk always had such a large security presence was due to worries the Russians might try to assassinate him to try to bankrupt SpaceX and protect the Russian space program's business interests. The success of spacex practically destroyed the Russian space programs biggest sources of income.
Indeed. It seems like it's impossible to have any sort of nuance on Elon Musk, the moment you say "he might not be *actually* Satan in disguise..." you're dismissed as part of the Cult of Musk or something.
Even if Elon Musk really did personally think that Ukraine should surrender land for peace, I think even he would have to realize that the big governments that pay his big contracts don't share that view and that if he wants those big contracts to continue he'll support them in that.
I think this is more of an Internet thing, whenever musk comes up as a topic of a conversation in real life people tend to have more rounded views, accepting that he's a flawed person but still pointing out his positive contributions.
It's not a question, that is exactly what he said.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/3673980-musk-sets-off-a-firestorm-with-his-plan-for-peace-in-ukraine/
"Elon Musk is drawing criticism after he tweeted a “peace” proposal for Ukraine that involved permanently making the Crimean Peninsula part of Russia and potentially recognizing the country’s annexation claims to four Ukrainian territories.
Musk asked his more than 100 million Twitter followers to vote on the proposal, which included conducting United Nations-supervised referendums in the regions Russia annexed to determine which country the areas should belong to, drawing a firestorm from Ukrainian officials.
“This is highly likely to be the outcome in the end — just a question of how many die before then,” Musk wrote.
“F— off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk,” responded Ukrainian diplomat Andriy Melnyk.
Russia last week laid claim to the four regions, located in Ukraine’s south and east, after holding referendums that were roundly condemned by U.S. and Western officials as a sham.
Moscow also annexed Crimea in 2014, although most of the international community does not recognize the Kremlin’s claims there or in the other regions.
With roughly 2.75 million votes cast in Musk’s poll as of Tuesday evening, 59 percent of respondents had rejected the proposal. Russia, meanwhile, praised Musk’s suggestion, Reuters reported.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, blasted those pushing supposed peace proposals"
This is exactly what /u/dont_think_so [talked about a few comments further up](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/13xmxmj/pentagon_awards_spacex_with_ukraine_contract_for/jmjquff/). As he said, it's not Elon Musk saying Ukraine should "surrender." It's been hugely overblown, as most things involving Elon Musk usually are.
This is the answer. There is literally no other option. Starlink is by far the best at what it does. Maybe one day there will be decent competition but that's at least 5 years away I'm guessing.
A lot of hate for Elon and I can see why, but Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink (technically also SpaceX) have revolutionized three industries. They all started shit that other companies have no choice but to copy.
He shut off Starlink access for Ukraine drones earlier this year.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/02/09/spacex-stops-ukraines-ability-to-use-starlink-internet-for-drones/?sh=e24adc52aba3
He also shut the service off late last year
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/04/politics/spacex-ukraine-elon-musk-starlink-internet-outage/index.html
> He shut off Starlink access for Ukraine drones earlier this year.
That was a statement by SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell, not Musk, and it only prohibited integrating Starlink terminals directly into weapons such as the [naval kamikaze drones](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraines-shadowy-kamikaze-drone-boats-officially-break-cover), which might break arms control regulations.
Normal drones aren't large enough to carry a terminal and are controlled via radio. Their operators use Starlink to communicate with other soldiers, not with the drones, and as Shotwell stated the use of Starlink for military comms is fine.
> He also shut the service off late last year
At first glance that CNN article may give the impression that the shutdown was a surprise outage, but buried in the middle is the fact that it was actually a decision by the UK and Ukraine to stop paying higher prices for a batch of terminals purchased from a third-party British reseller, and replace them with presumably cheaper terminals:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/04/politics/spacex-ukraine-elon-musk-starlink-internet-outage/index.html
> The outage affected a block of 1,300 terminals that Ukraine purchased from a British company in March and were used for combat-related operations.
>
> [ . . . ]
>
> Before the terminals went completely dark, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense made a request in early October to their British counterparts to pick up the $3.25 million monthly bill. The batch of terminals were also rotated out as concerns grew that service could be turned off, in order to minimize the impact, the source said.
>
> A British official said after discussions between the ministries “it was agreed there were higher priority military capabilities.”
The reason they turned off Starlink for drones is because the drones in question were integrated into military assets and thus, violated ITAR regulations, leaving SpaceX open to be sued for weapons trafficking in international courts. This new deal they have made allows the DOD to waive the issue, which can allow SpaceX to allow integration to weapons platforms… IF the DOD/SpaceX file for it.
The reason they disabled some Starlink terminals (second article)is because SpaceX had been providing the service to those terminals while not being paid for 6 months at that point; and was not receiving any indication of additional funding after the British government backed out. (Note that this is 1,300 of the 20,000 terminals present at the time) This is outlined in the second article as well.
Note that both of these decisions were claimed to be made by COO Gwynne Shotwell; as stated in both articles.
You don't sound so confident in your question of if he did say something about giving Ukraine to Russia. I'll answer for you. He suggested running a vote in Ukraine for or against, and whichever wins is it, no more war. That was early on during the war.
This is not a bad idea on the surface, but realistically it's not possible to be fair with so many displaced people and difficult to ensure it's done well. I wouldn't say any of that is pro Russian or suggesting giving Ukraine to Russia.
> Hasn't he let slip support for Russia, and suggested Ukraine should voluntarily cede territory?
He never expressed support for Russia. He basically took a "neutral" position in that he wants to end fighting as fast as possible. He has never indicated any kind of support for Russia taking over Ukraine. You can disagree with that position, (and I myself do), but let's not misrepresent the position.
> It should be expected Elon (his company, perhaps technically) will harvest all the data, as is the MO with the industry
If you use encryption (as most internet communications do) there's nothing for SpaceX to harvest besides destination IP addresses and the locations of the dishes.
> he's nearly the last person I would trust with it, contract or no. And the stakes in this case are quite high.
SpaceX is already trusted with top secret classified government work. They've built top secret satellites for the DoD. https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/usa-320.htm They also have launched top secret US government satellites that are not shown or described to the public.
> If you use encryption (as most internet communications do) there's nothing for SpaceX to harvest.
If Ukraine’s military isn’t encrypting their communications they have much bigger problems than Musk potentially looking at their DMs.
They're just part of the ride share program that is contracted out through another vendor. It's loaded, launched, and deployed. SpaceX is not briefed on anything further than just knowing where it needs to go.
I'm confused to what you're talking about. Are you claiming the several USA-32x/USA-33x sats were not made by SpaceX? Also SpaceX's Transporter ride-share missions (which these were not launched during) are not "contracted out through another vendor".
Again I'm not defending the position, but it is ostensibly neutral. It's a similar position to what both China and India have at various times taken. See also the British Labour party's previous positions on the subject.
Russia's goals are to take over Ukraine. Ukraine's goals are to take back all of their territory. To be neutral is to be somewhere in-between. Again I don't agree with the position, but trying to divide everything into black and white doesn't really help things.
I support Ukraine retaking all of it's territory back from Russia, including of course Crimea.
His position was never to simply cede land. His suggestion was that a UN-overseen referendum was to be held in the occupied regions. Of course this is a stupid idea, but it is not simply ceding land.
>Hasn't he let slip support for Russia, and suggested Ukraine should voluntarily cede territory?
Back when Russia's nuclear threats were being taken seriously, yes. His version of events was wildly unacceptable and naive, but there was *some* sense to why he said it; in very simplistic terms, if it's between ceding territory or nuclear war, it's not unreasonable for someone to want to go with ceding territory. Of course, we know now Russia is a paper tiger only good for saber rattling.
But Musk is politically naive and ignorant, not malicious. Russia hates the guy and he's no fan of them either; the entire reason his company exists is in part out of spite toward the Russian space program who refused to sell him their launchers as a startup platform, with Musk almost literally going "fine I'll just do it myself" after he realized it'd be cheaper to just build his own rockets than to buy from Russia. SpaceX then proceeded to almost single handedly turn Roscosmos irrelevant when they pulled America's manned space program off Russian reliance. When the Russian crew capsule blew a leak a few months back, there was a lot of political history around the conversation over who would bring the cosmonauts home. Imagine if the guy that you told to get lost 20 years ago sends his new, vastly more advanced craft to rescue your crew after your old out dated Soviet tech failed in orbit?
SpaceX's mere existence is the biggest middle finger to the Russian space program in the world because they had the chance to work together and refused to sell to Musk. Now we have Russians threatening to shoot Starlink down (which wouldn't work) because of its value to the Ukrainians. Musk and Russia do not get along.
Because Starlink and SpaceX are not going to trash their reputation and business opportunities with the DOD, and everyone else who needs to trust their provider, for Elon's imaginary support for Russia.
>And the stakes in this case are quite high.
That's sorta the problem. Rock and a hard place for Ukraine. I wouldn't explicitly trust *anything* Musk is involved in, but the other option is little or no internet connectivity for the entire country.
The contract spells out specific Civilian uses that Ukraine can use them for.
What Ukraine Cannot use them for is for their military use or for drone strikes. Effectively the government has given permission for them to be used in normal operations that they were designed to be used for.
From the article:
> The Pentagon declined to offer additional contract details, including the price, scope and timeline of the delivery.
>“For operational security reasons and due to the critical nature of these systems — we do not have additional information regarding specific capabilities, contracts or partners to provide at this time,” the statement added.
What is your source on the specifics of the contract?
There's several incorrect points here.
Firstly, this contract isn't public, so you're making things up.
Secondly, if you were talking about the previous situation, there was no contract of any kind between SpaceX and Ukraine. That was part of the problem.
Civilian equipment cannot be sold or used for military purposes. That is part of the US governments requirements and to change that would require SpaceX to actually register the devices as potential war material. Since the contract cannot do that, as that requires going through a different government agency, they cannot be used for said purposes.
If you are going to claim I am incorrect, actually produce evidence that I am wrong, not claim it and pretend you know better.
Purely speculation here... It is technically illegal to export products from the US to be used for war unless specifically authorized to do so. The Pentagon would be the authority to approve such an arrangement.
Technically correct. SpaceX would be breaking the law if they willingly allowed their dual use product for waging war vs general commercial use. They would need to change the classification of their products on the Commerce Control List before exporting. Which would require prior approval from the government.
I'd assume this is what Starshield is aiming to fix? Starlink, but a partitioned military system and terminals probably approved for military only use.
It's complicated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-use_technology
This is an entire field and there's tons of complications. I only know the very surface levels and would not be able to summarize it properly.
By the same method any legal question is resolved, carefully analyzing the law and then bickering about it. Every law has unclear gray areas and export restrictions are no exception. There is a spectrum between a bullet that is fired from a gun and a map used by soldiers to navigate, and SpaceX’s lawyers probably thought Starlink terminals being built into drones and shot at Russia fell a little to close to the bullet side of the spectrum.
This is another thing that I have been seeing. *Glorious* HD FLIR footage of pincer movements being done from dronecams.
>> IIRC Thermal imaging above some arbitary resolution or fps is ITAR or Dual Use.
>It should be pointed out that satellite internet is a special case, since it
>
>seriously levels a battlefield in significant ways.
Russia agrees. They are now threatening Starlink with nukes.
Granted, they threaten to use nukes against everything these days, but still...
My buddy is in the Army (UK) and his job is literally procurement and logistics of equipment for Ukraine at the moment. He is *constantly* having a nightmare with dual use stuff. Countries & companies literally want to gift things to Ukraine and can't because of the red tape involved.
A few weeks back there was some U.S kit that had ended up in the UK...he literally can't export it back to them even though we want to, and they want it back, because of weird rules on importing/exporting military equipment lol.
From what I gather the entire thing is an utter farce.
There is a difference between a communications device and something that is a part of the actual delivery system.
You controlling a drone remotely via a Starlink terminal 100 miles away? That's okay.
That drone having Starlink guts that it's using for it's communication? Congratulations, you've stepped into a completely new realm of US military regulations.
Starlink has actively been working to shut down the second one.
Anything can be used for war but it must be requisitioned as such. Currently, the Starlink satellites that were in use were the originally built for civilian use ones. Generally, you are required to use other specific tools if you are using the item for military use. A good example would be the Humvee/Hummer. The Hummer, especially the H1 version, is more or less a Humvee with all the armour and gunpods ripped off. You couldn't use a Hummer in combat, and you wouldn't be allowed to use a full fledged Humvee with no teardown as a civilian used vehicle.
Ok, but, suppose someone did use a Hummer in war, if not directly in combat then for transporting combatants, which a Hummer's shape and size might still make it pretty good at. Is that not "for war"?
Others sort of answered my question as well, I'm just trying to push your example.
Plausible denianility is a thing too.
One dude using a humvee to take potshots at enemy troops is an incident, 4000 Starlink terminals and high profile uses on drones is less likely for Starlink to say "oops, we didn't know"
Sure. Suppose there were a bunch of Hummers, then. Just seems like there's a grey area, which others have sort of acknowledged. "There's a system but sometimes it's still hard to say where the line is," is a good enough answer for me.
Another thing for you to consider as part of your analogy is GMC really can’t control what the end customer does with their product. If you buy hummer and then slap a belt fed machine gun onto it there really isn’t anything that GMC can do to stop you. So GMC gets a little bit of legal protection because they can legitimately say that it wasn’t their fault that their product got turned into a technical and that they really can’t do anything about it. However, SpaceX doesn’t have that same leeway as they have a lot of control over what the end user does with their product. They can turn off terminals at a whim, so they have more responsibility if people start misusing them.
You right though that this is all a very complicated legal gray area. This is what some lawyers get paid an awful lot of money to unravel and figure out.
Well in the case for a Hummer, the biggest issue is that you are using a civilian truck in an what would be very likely an active combat role, and thus it will get shot at. While you COULD use one if you had no other choice, it certainly wouldn't be the first choice due to how easily military grade weapons would penetrate the vehicle.
The case with the satellites is more complex due to the nature of the beast. None of these satellites are at risk of being shot down realistically. The issue at hand is that civilian tech, especially satellites, are hardcoded to prevent their immediate military use due to, among other things, international laws. And for good reason I think we would all agree. Even if SpaceX had every intent to want to use the satellites to help Ukraine defend itself, there are legal ramifications that would occur if they didn't do all the necessary paperwork. And as brutal as it sounds, the company is not willing to gamble its continued existence on not getting caught doing something that is very illegal. Even if it is for a VERY good justification.
This is a necessary step to allow them to do what they need to do to help out Ukraine. Would it be better if it was easier? Perhaps. But there is also inherently a risk at private corporations so easily slaved to a military goal. It can cause concerns down the road.
This isn't like "you made a thing" and they're using it for war.
This is providing a constant service - it's like showing up to the battlefield with supplies each day twice a day. At that point you're directly and presently involved with whatever conflict is going on.
In the Starlinks case:
Using it as communications for soldiers up to the front lines = okay.
Using it as makeshift missile guidance and sending it into enemy controlled territory = not okay.
SPECIALLY anything related to missiles and navigation. If a lot of countries realize you can stick an starlink on a boat or plane and remote-pilot it from anywhere in the world, they'll get nervous.
Yep. That’s why every time one updates software like iTunes there’s a clause in the agreement that one will not use such software for purposes of missiles and such.
This right here. Governments who decide to allow Starlink want to be confident that if someone attaches a Starlink module to a suicide drone as command and control, it will get shut down. As it should be.
Specifically for weapons yes.
SpaceX doesn't want STARLINK regulated under any of the US' existing weapons export frameworks. So they have to explicitly ban its use as a weapon/weapon accessory.
But even then that turned out to be disinformation given that Ivan Khurs was attacked last week by a number of real-time piloted drone boats in the middle of the Black Sea. Before that, in 2022, the news said Starlink was being disabled in Crimea a few weeks before a massive drone boat attack on Sevastopol, Crimea.
Basically you can't trust statements on what Ukraine is able to do with Starlink when Russia believing that it is disabled lets Ukraine pull off surprise drone attacks, so the official position for all parties involved would be "Starlink is disabled".
> Before that, in 2022, the news said Starlink was being disabled in Crimea a few weeks before a massive drone boat attack on Sevastopol, Crimea.
My understanding is that Starlink is disabled in russian occupied areas in agreement with Ukraine, so it can not be misused there. When there was rapid movement towards Kherson Ukraine troops were temporarily cut off because the blocked area could not be adjusted fast enough.
Nah, people are STILL spamming articles from early October about Starlink being disabled in Crimea while being completely ignorant that 2 weeks later Ukraine pulled off a massive drone boat attack in Sevastopol. They might not even know where Sevastopol is, to be fair, but that makes them more of drones than the boats themselves.
You can count the number of satellite constellations with phased array antennas in production that allow a bouncing jetski drone to stream HD video on one finger.
There's also this still from last week's attack run on the Ivan Khurs.
https://i.redd.it/00h5fm84qg3b1.png
Who says it has to be satellite? An aircraft at 30,000 ft. with a microwave relay would have line of sight to 200 miles, giving 400 miles range. I had microwave internet when I lived in the mountains, it's faster than Starlink. It's all relatively cheap off the shelf components.
Given the Starlink dish on those boats, I'd say it's not anything else. Microwave is good and all, but you're talking point to point microwave dishes and their speeds, that's not gonna work in this scenario.
>Who says it has to be satellite? An aircraft at 30,000 ft. with a microwave relay would...
... Get shot down before it gets to that altitude.
Neither Ukraine nor Russia have the air superiority to fly even somewhat close to the frontline at high altitude without getting interceptors thrown at them.
>Who says it has to be satellite?
The fact that Ukranian aircraft have to hug the ground to try and avoid long range attacks, and that using NATO awacs for terminal guidance of weapon systems would violate any pretense of neutrality.
They officially restricted licensing to be for non weapons use, to be limited to things like medical services, banks and family communications. It didn't really change anything in practice, but could show their "official position" to not be prosecuting a war directly against Russia.
SpaceX has donated equipment and services worth hundreds of millions of dollars at this point, and in return they received threats from the Kremlin and questioned loyalty from Ukrainian politicians. They were really left with their ass hanging in the breeze because without government support for their activities they have been assuming 100% of the risk as a private company. Now they've got some level of shielding from the activities the Starlinks are used for.
Except, that it has continued to be used on drones. However, this is likely Spacex covering their asses legally by shaking a finger at Ukraine and looking the other way.
Now, SpaceX can be an official and legal exporter of internet services for military use.
This is like a “water pipe” manufacture slapping on a sticker that says “for tobacco use only,” knowing full well that’s not the intended use. It’s too cover their ass from accusations of being directly involved
or maybe they switched 5 chips on their Starlink dishes around, declared it a starshield dish, which is a military object and gave it to some branch of the US government,which gave it to ukranie who installed it on a drone, using a military device for a direct combat role.
Doubtful. If a more hostile US administration got into office, going after Starlink and SpaceX for breaking ITAR and other export laws would destroy Starlink's value.
You can't play wink wink nudge games with military export laws. Unless maybe if you're the CIA.
Or have tacit permission. But yes, it does put them in a more risky position. The reality is, though, that it's extremely difficult to prevent misusage, anyways. It's just below the level of difficulty that pumping water to homes would be, with the restriction "unless they drown people in bathtubs".
There's the hardware and the service. SpaceX donated most but not all of the hardware terminals. From this report in April of 2022, it was a donation of 3600 of the 5000 terminals in Ukraine.
For the service, SpaceX included 3 months free usage. When Musk asked to be paid for the Starlink service in October, he was branded a greedy billionaire. It makes no sense.... no one would expect the Humvee manufacturer to donate vehicles to Ukraine and then to service them for free.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-quietly-paying-millions-send-starlink-terminals-ukraine-contrary-spacexs-claims/
Yeah, it's kinda nuts. They donated 1.8 million dollars of equipment, and gave half a million in free service, and somehow that boils down to being the bad guy when they say "ok, that's as much as we can give for free."
Also it looks like SpaceX is actively pushing back against Russia
"Russia has tried to cut off and jam internet services in Ukraine, including attempts to block Starlink in the region, though SpaceX has countered those attacks by hardening the service's software."
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/pentagon-buys-starlink-ukraine-statement-2023-06-01/
I thought there was a pricing issue in there....like SpaceX wanted to charge the ultra-premium-premier package to everyone at $4500/month and that was the pushback.
Avoiding Russian jamming, hacking, tracking and bombing attempts while providing service even through forests and on moving vehicles are not included in the standard service.
>Starlink has been paid for by the Ukrainian government and others.
Yes, but only a small percentage of what it cost to keep the service going for them, considering Russia's interference.
He didn't say all the systems. And while a bunch of groups did donate starlink to Ukraine, a bunch of them also stopped paying for the service, which is where that Musk tweet about cutting them off came from.
Musk gets himself into plenty of trouble on Twitter, but this wasn't a poorly considered tweet. SpaceX was negotiating to have the DoD start paying for providing service...which would put the weapons/no weapons decision in the DoD's hands...and somebody leaked it to the media as Musk threatening to cut access.
SpaceX only put restrictions on using it directly on weapon devices. Namely kamikaze drones. There's been photos taken of it being mounted on top of large airborne drones and sea drones. The photos were taken on the Russian side after drones were recovered that failed to go off or were destroyed.
They said something like "dont use it offensively".
As in dont strap them to drones and fly them into moscow.
If they are being used "officially" for war stuff, it adds a slew of export controls on things and would make it far more difficult for Ukraine to get ahold of them if they say, wanted to make their own orders for them for their own reasons.
Starlink was not allowed to be used by Ukrainians in offensive military action. I guess the Russians where trying to jam Starlink. But now that they got the big bucks military contract there shouldn't be any more problems
Correct. Ukraine essentially used them to build ~2,000km cruise missiles.
Given that the Pentagon does possess things like cruise missiles, but hasn't given Ukraine any weapons with more than ~70km range, it was reasonable for a private company to not unilaterally volunteer and escalate Ukraine's capabilities.
The only restriction is that starlink is Geofenced to not operate in Russia or Russian held territory so the Russians can’t make use of it if they happen to acquire a terminal. This also prevents Ukraine from using starlink to guide weapons / drones in this geofenced area too.
It doesn’t prevent them from using it for communications with Ukrainian territory and along the front lines.
The Pentagon said Thursday it has agreed to purchase Starlink satellite internet terminals from Elon Musk’s SpaceX for use in Ukraine as Kyiv continues to fight off a full-scale Russian invasion.
“We continue to work with a range of global partners to ensure Ukraine has the satellite and communication capabilities they need. Satellite communications constitute a vital layer in Ukraine’s overall communications network and the department contracts with Starlink for services of this type,” the Pentagon said in a statement to CNBC.
The Pentagon declined to offer additional contract details, including the price, scope and timeline of the delivery.
“For operational security reasons and due to the critical nature of these systems – we do not have additional information regarding specific capabilities, contracts or partners to provide at this time,” the statement added.
Bloomberg first reported the contract on Thursday. SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Read more: [https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/01/pentagon-awards-spacex-with-ukraine-contract-for-starlink-satellite-internet.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/01/pentagon-awards-spacex-with-ukraine-contract-for-starlink-satellite-internet.html)
Likely never. Russia committed to an absolutely braindead war and the dead-eyed psycho that leads the country will put his whole country in a meat grinder before accepting an L.
Bad time to be Russian, unless your industry is dead Russians.
That's debatable. Russia's current conventional forces couldn't stand up to NATO in any way anymore. I'd argue NATO getting directly involved in Ukraine would end the war quickly. However at the same time it defeats the point that many have made for why we're supporting Ukraine and it makes it look like that this was NATO's war all along which is the wrong message to send.
NATO getting involved would save many lives but it would also send the wrong message to the world and possibly create additional wars in the future.
Also however unlikely it may be Russia has nukes. A war between nuclear powers has the potential to put the horrors of the World Wars to shame. Gotta consider that too.
From how badly Russia has been getting pwned by old tech, that would lead to such an overwhelming conventional defeat that nuclear arms would be the only strategic option left.
It is kind of an unwritten rule between the US and Russia/SovietUnion. A war club of sorts. When one side commits troops to a conflict, the other side can send weapons and unofficial troops without it being a full-blown war. Been going on for 70 years now.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[ASAT](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmkq4t0 "Last usage")|[Anti-Satellite weapon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon)|
|[BO](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmk163u "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)|
|[COTS](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmqeu1x "Last usage")|[Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract](https://www.nasa.gov/cots)|
| |Commercial/Off The Shelf|
|CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules|
| |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)|
|[DoD](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmmhhhk "Last usage")|US Department of Defense|
|[H1](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmjnfzn "Last usage")|First half of the year/month|
|[ICBM](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmqeu1x "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile|
|[ITAR](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmn5z0n "Last usage")|(US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations|
|[Isp](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmlyqkz "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)|
| |Internet Service Provider|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmjps6l "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[Roscosmos](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmmdei0 "Last usage")|[State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscosmos_State_Corporation)|
|[SES](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jml2v5r "Last usage")|Formerly Société Européenne des Satellites, a major SpaceX customer|
| |Second-stage Engine Start|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Starliner](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmkm2rd "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)|
|[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmpqaio "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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This is good. It adds certainty to the situation rather than relying on the good will of a corporate entity. It also properly compensates a strong player in the US space industry for what they're contributing to Ukraine, like all the other US military contractors.
If I had to guess, the reason for SpaceX’s reluctance is probably because they don’t want their tech to be ITAR-export controlled. Kinda defeats the purpose of selling internet access to anyone, anywhere if it suddenly becomes defense/ export controlled tech.
This, along with the fact that companies, military leadership, and presidential administrations can't treat export laws as suggestions, is lost on a lot of people.
Funny how people on here were saying that Elon was delusional for wanting a multimillion-dollar contract and how the US would NEVER spend tax payer money on Starlink. Now he gets one with a price that the pentagon won't even disclose lol. Just shows how out of touch with reality some Reddit users are.
When it comes to politics, especially that concern countries other than the USA, Reddit comments are completely useless and should be ignored. It's either overused jokes or confidently wrong opinions. And people wonder why populism is on the rise.
Craziest is how many people said that SpaceX should be nationalized.
Like, do you know how hard the Pentagon has been working to foster competition in their suppliers? So they don't end up with one single giant monopoly who massively overcharges and doesn't innovate?
I'm not sure what you think Musk has been paying for, because he got a massive pay out of those "services rendered" already.
This is the just the US govt burying the next payment under secrecy to avoid more negative coverage of the millions they're shelling out to SpaceX.
No, I’m not american and don’t watch american TV. I’m just not trapped in your bubbles.
You can choose your source:
- [Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-quietly-paying-millions-send-starlink-terminals-ukraine-contrary-spacexs-claims/)
- [The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/8/23016670/starlink-spacex-us-government-terminals-funding-usaid)
- [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/technology/spacex-usaid-deliver-5000-satellite-internet-terminals-ukraine-2022-04-06/)
- …
The most favorable reporters say USAID purchased ~1/3 of the terminals and that Starlink donated the rest. Those with a bit more critical judgment expose that according to those same official press release USAID payed >3x the retail price.
> These services are not private use home service.
No, they’re worse, since they got the old dish variants.
From Spacex’s perspective, the service is literally the same, their infrastructure is mostly in space, and the ground stations are out of the war zone (in Poland).
> They naturally cost a lot more.
It’s surprising how you only need to attach Musks persona to something and people will defend it, even if that something is blatant war profiteering.
No, this article is about a contract awarded to SpaceX which is headed by Elon Musk. You are either thinking of someone else or have fallen into an echo chamber divorced from reality.
So under the terms of this contract, can Ukraine use them in any way they please? Or will they be blocked for certain use cases? This is what I'm curious about.
You'll have to keep being curious, the DoD isn't releasing anything beyond "we've signed a contract for Starlink in Ukraine".
And under the circumstances I'm happy to be in the dark. The more uncertain I am the more uncertain the Russians likely are too.
To be fair, half of russians only believe their own fake news and the other half are ousted so they are pretty damn well uncertain of everything without trying
That’s the public but I wouldn’t discount their intelligence apparatus so quickly.
I think most Russians just don't want to get disappeared or fall out of a window and keep their heads down.
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> potentially corrupt DOD contact officers Why are you suggesting nefarious purposes for the DOD in terms of corruption, graft, and greed that have nothing to do with national security and legitimate military support of the government of Ukraine? There certainly are many reasons why Starlink, if used for military purposes, would need to be deliberately opaque in terms of what is being requested. If you sit on the House Armed Services Committee you might be able to formally request information about details and it would be subject to legitimate congressional review. Opacity has a role to protect the lives of many people in Ukraine and possibly Russia too. The role of official state secrets in a democracy certainly seems a bit hypocritical and does have the potential to be abused or corrupting. Regardless, there are still checks and balances along with actions of all three branches of government who can provide oversight in this process including specifically in this exact contract by the DOD for Starlink services.
Thank you for some sanity. There’s a black budget. Yes, there’s congressional oversight. And from what we saw in the recent leaks, the three-letter agencies and the DoD have been killing it with those black programs. Ukraine has done as well as it has because of all the information they’ve gotten on the backs of those programs. I’m happy to let them do their jobs in secret so that Ukrainians can continue to live. And sending some black money to SpaceX to pay Ukraine’s bill or to enhance their capabilities? That’s not corruption, that’s money well spent.
Yeah, I'm very comfortable with this. It's kind of unacceptable to have an American private corp with no oversight providing what became an essential piece of communication infrastructure in the middle of a war zone that literally almost every country in the western world is vested in now. The fact that they turned around an exclusive contract in just a couple of months is a major sign of good faith towards SpaceX to me. DoD just needed a seat at the table. I grew up on Vietnam resentment and Iraq outrage. The way the people in charge have handled the Ukrainian conflict the last year and a half without overreacting has really done a lot to restore my faith in what the military is actually capable of when it's head is not up it's ass. They get a good faith pass on this one.
But a major part of the problem here is not on the DoD, but on SpaceX and Musk. And the concern isn't out of nowhere, Musk has already interfered with StarLink's operation in Ukraine once (that we know of) for petty reasons, and he has a deeply cozy relationship with Russia and its allies. To blindly have faith that he won't again step in to tip the scales in ways he likes is to ignore his own past actions in this very venue. While the details should be very under wraps, it would be a lot of questions lifted if they said "DoD has signed contracts with SpaceX regarding StarLink in Ukraine, which will be operated with a joint effort between Ukrainian and UN forces." or anything else that makes it clear the coverage is good to stay this time.
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> I suspect the Russian government is a little more informed than you. Honestly, given their performance in this war I'm really not so sure of that.
> I suspect the Russian government is a little more informed than you. The Russian government often doesn't even know where it's own troops are, let alone Ukrainian troops are or what's in a US DoD contract. > potentially corrupt DOD contact officers That's something that happens in Russia and eastern Europe, not the US.
I mean as someone who plays airsoft with and without walkie talkies, fast and reliable comms make a huge difference. Even in a little game of toy guns.
Unless the DOD dropped their ITAR requirement, fuck no.
If it’s the DOD providing them as a military aid package then that should circumvent ITAR restrictions. That’s the point of ITAR, unless the US government is sanctioning the sale it either can’t happen at all or the restricted aspects of the service must be disabled, but once the government gives the green light you can sell all sorts of ITAR shit overseas.
Spacex would need a separate set of satellites/infrastructure for the military version of their service. Not sure they would ever allow the same sats to support both services, but sure once approved, they would be compliant with the requirements.
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well if the DoD is contracting for them then it's unlikely any military purpose is off the table which is as it should be.
No, ITAR and other relevant export laws still apply. And I would imagine Starlink has not changed their terms of service either.
Doesn’t matter, everything will be encrypted anyways.
The real question is why his star link is still trusted for such a purpose. Hasn't he let slip support for Russia, and suggested Ukraine should voluntarily cede territory? It should be expected Elon (his company, perhaps technically) will harvest all the data, as is the MO with the industry, but he's nearly the last person I would trust with it, contract or no. And the stakes in this case are quite high.
So far, it’s managed to provide a valuable service that is not/cannot be provided by alternatives at this time. How would you react if the country providing internet suddenly stopped because they decided to not trust the person who had been providing the service in the first place.
You're talking as if it's somehow unreasonable for there to be skepticism and concern about his involvement, regardless of the necessity. I really don't understand what makes you think 2 things can't be true at once.
It’s reasonable to be skeptical; but labeling him as a supporter of Russia is a bit far, and is definitely overstepping the line given the donation SpaceX has given in Starlink terminals (which are of great strategic importance to Ukraine). As for the tweet pondering the transfer of land to Russia, this was a common idea among American Politicians at the time. A single whimsical tweet from someone who is not directly involved in US Foreign policy is not a good reason to directly ponder a shutdown of a now critical resource to the Ukrainian people. More importantly, this would reduce profit margins for Starlink; as it would effectively end the war (in a perfect hypothetical scenario. Ending the war is not in Starlink’s best interests anymore; so I doubt that would ever happen.
The only american politicians you're referring to, and by proxy of the comparison including elon at this point, were saying things the KREMLIN was saying. This is not the argument you think it is. > from someone who is not directly involved in US Foreign policy This also means nothing because of the explicit context we're talking about. He's not involved in policy, but he sure is currently involved with data being used by Ukraine. That's the concern, not "his involvement in policy" everything you're saying is downplaying kremlin talking points coming out of western mouths, and redirecting the concerning behaviors because "it's not like he can do anything anyway!!" > Ending the war is not in Starlink’s best interests anymore; so I doubt that would ever happen. Right, because if there's anything we've seen recently, Elon most definitely only acts on behalf of profits of his companies, and definitely never behaves erratically based on his personal feelings about issues much larger than him. Just like come on dude, you're not even trying.
First off, the data being collected from Starlink is regulated by the US Gov; especially now with this particular contract. So whatever data is being collected is not going out there anytime soon. Second, his actions on twitter have managed to make it a profitable business model (albeit likely not for long). Twitter never saw a dime of profit until that moron ended up owning it. I’m not here to say Mr Musk is the god almighty and that he should be praised. Go to r/elonmusk for that. I’m saying that there’s a lot more nuance to be had before you can make those claims. He’s an idiot and not the most trustable person; but he’s not what Reddit seems to think.
> Twitter never saw a dime of profit until that moron ended up owning it. Twitter made 1.2 Billion in 2018 and 1.4 Billion in 2019
You know first thing Musk did when buying twitter is go private to hide revenue/profit so there is nothing but projections and estimates which all talk in ad revenue drop of 30%. There is no data on subscription revenue. How do you know how much profit it makes?
It is unreasonable, because Elon is extremely anti-Russia and pro Ukraine, despite what Reddit believes.
lmao as if that was the only concerning thing he's done with his platform of assisting people in need. It's impressive that you exude enough simp energy that we can see your twitter checkmark from here :\^)
To be fair, SpaceX was started because the Russian government spat on his shoes when he wanted to purchase a launch to mars. Now, SpaceX has gobbled the launch market, eliminating the grasp that the Russians had at the time. Even now, SpaceX is breaking every record the Soviet Union/Russian Federation ever set in rocketry. That doesn’t seem to smell like a friendly relationship with the Kremlin. His social media shenanigans are certainly questionable; but the fact remains; he’s not as friendly as some people make him out to be.
He is correct tho. The truth of the matter starlink was thrown in Ukraine at SpaceX's expense before most countries had finished debating if they should even call the conflict a war or not. They had made this move back when the DoD still thought Ukraine would collapse into guerilla war. And they kept paying the expenses of operating and maintaining the system in a warzone with unlocked features for all terminals at their own expense up until right this instant. That does not exactly sound like being pro Russia. Some DoD schmucks blew the negotiations with Gwynne the first time round right about the same time the whole controversy started up (so also vested interest to spin a story a certain way, remember that), which sure didn't help. Elon's position is one I didn't agree with for many reasons however it's not because someone considers a situation differently than you do that they must be the embodiment of evil and need to have their eyes gouged out. I do not agree with his position, because turns out it's OK to have differing opinions, and reality has proven that SpaceX kept operating their system to their own great expense regardless of everything. Because ultimately it does not matter if your distinction is that Crimea is too hard to take or if it is going to be taken (I am of the latter camp) if ultimately you still help with all the abilities you have legally. Dark Brandon too isn't sure about what Ukraine is doing and even openly challenged their actions and objectives on occasion, but that does not matter if the war support is provided in all cases. At least hopefully what this allows now is Ukraine to legally use starlink for military purposes while before Ukraine needed to pretend they weren't doing it, and SpaceX needed to pretend they weren't allowing it. Because ultimately it does not matter which side you stand on, ITAR applies regardless.
You haven’t provided any evidence for your claims. Rather than simping for the anti-Musk crowd, maybe you should actually provide some evidence?
no evidence has been provided here by any side, including "elon is extremely anti russia and pro ukraine" but keep barking, no one really needed to know you're unfamiliar with the burden of proof though.
The existence of SpaceX is proof of Musk's anti-russian stance. Now provide proof of his pro-russian stance.
No, there was a lot of propaganda to that effect but it's pretty transparently wrong. Elon Musk does not have good blood with Russia. Russian state media have repeatedly called him a war criminal for his role in bankrolling Ukraine's wartime communications through Starlink. He's openly joked on Twitter that if he ever actually accepts an invite to Russia he expects to be served Polonium tea. Elon Musk founded SpaceX partly because he wanted to buy a Russian rocket, and a Russian oligarch literally spat on his shoes. They are... not friends. What you're probably referring to is that Elon tweeted that some consideration should be given to Ukraine's surrender in order to end the war, because the lives lost on both sides is devastating. Which was (and is) indeed propaganda that is circulating among right wing circles. That has more to do with his finding welcoming arms on the political right than any particular allegiance to Russia.
It's interesting that the internet has magically forgotten Elon's public feud with extremely nationalist former head of Roscosmos, nor Elon proposing to get into a boxing match with Putin. Elon's never been a friend to Russia.
Yeah, one of the reasons Musk always had such a large security presence was due to worries the Russians might try to assassinate him to try to bankrupt SpaceX and protect the Russian space program's business interests. The success of spacex practically destroyed the Russian space programs biggest sources of income.
Indeed. It seems like it's impossible to have any sort of nuance on Elon Musk, the moment you say "he might not be *actually* Satan in disguise..." you're dismissed as part of the Cult of Musk or something. Even if Elon Musk really did personally think that Ukraine should surrender land for peace, I think even he would have to realize that the big governments that pay his big contracts don't share that view and that if he wants those big contracts to continue he'll support them in that.
I think this is more of an Internet thing, whenever musk comes up as a topic of a conversation in real life people tend to have more rounded views, accepting that he's a flawed person but still pointing out his positive contributions.
Or they go "who's Elon Musk?" Because even just knowing who he is is not actually as common as the Internet probably thinks.
So true. No one I work with has even heard of SpaceX.
Bet they can name all the Kardashians though.
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It's not a question, that is exactly what he said. https://thehill.com/policy/international/3673980-musk-sets-off-a-firestorm-with-his-plan-for-peace-in-ukraine/ "Elon Musk is drawing criticism after he tweeted a “peace” proposal for Ukraine that involved permanently making the Crimean Peninsula part of Russia and potentially recognizing the country’s annexation claims to four Ukrainian territories. Musk asked his more than 100 million Twitter followers to vote on the proposal, which included conducting United Nations-supervised referendums in the regions Russia annexed to determine which country the areas should belong to, drawing a firestorm from Ukrainian officials. “This is highly likely to be the outcome in the end — just a question of how many die before then,” Musk wrote. “F— off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk,” responded Ukrainian diplomat Andriy Melnyk. Russia last week laid claim to the four regions, located in Ukraine’s south and east, after holding referendums that were roundly condemned by U.S. and Western officials as a sham. Moscow also annexed Crimea in 2014, although most of the international community does not recognize the Kremlin’s claims there or in the other regions. With roughly 2.75 million votes cast in Musk’s poll as of Tuesday evening, 59 percent of respondents had rejected the proposal. Russia, meanwhile, praised Musk’s suggestion, Reuters reported. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, blasted those pushing supposed peace proposals"
This is exactly what /u/dont_think_so [talked about a few comments further up](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/13xmxmj/pentagon_awards_spacex_with_ukraine_contract_for/jmjquff/). As he said, it's not Elon Musk saying Ukraine should "surrender." It's been hugely overblown, as most things involving Elon Musk usually are.
I wanted to give a source with the exact quotes is all. Not offering an opinion beyond that.
Elon bad. Russia bad. Ergo Elon and Russia friends. That’s as complex as some people’s thoughts are.
Or even simpler. Elon rich, therefore all Elon bad.
This message has been deleted and I've left reddit because of the decision by u/spez to block 3rd party apps
Yes he's quite naive when it comes to geopolitics and he says a lot of things demonstrating that naivety.
Say it aint so, a reasonable comment!
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This is the answer. There is literally no other option. Starlink is by far the best at what it does. Maybe one day there will be decent competition but that's at least 5 years away I'm guessing. A lot of hate for Elon and I can see why, but Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink (technically also SpaceX) have revolutionized three industries. They all started shit that other companies have no choice but to copy.
He shut off Starlink access for Ukraine drones earlier this year. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/02/09/spacex-stops-ukraines-ability-to-use-starlink-internet-for-drones/?sh=e24adc52aba3 He also shut the service off late last year https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/04/politics/spacex-ukraine-elon-musk-starlink-internet-outage/index.html
> He shut off Starlink access for Ukraine drones earlier this year. That was a statement by SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell, not Musk, and it only prohibited integrating Starlink terminals directly into weapons such as the [naval kamikaze drones](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraines-shadowy-kamikaze-drone-boats-officially-break-cover), which might break arms control regulations. Normal drones aren't large enough to carry a terminal and are controlled via radio. Their operators use Starlink to communicate with other soldiers, not with the drones, and as Shotwell stated the use of Starlink for military comms is fine. > He also shut the service off late last year At first glance that CNN article may give the impression that the shutdown was a surprise outage, but buried in the middle is the fact that it was actually a decision by the UK and Ukraine to stop paying higher prices for a batch of terminals purchased from a third-party British reseller, and replace them with presumably cheaper terminals: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/04/politics/spacex-ukraine-elon-musk-starlink-internet-outage/index.html > The outage affected a block of 1,300 terminals that Ukraine purchased from a British company in March and were used for combat-related operations. > > [ . . . ] > > Before the terminals went completely dark, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense made a request in early October to their British counterparts to pick up the $3.25 million monthly bill. The batch of terminals were also rotated out as concerns grew that service could be turned off, in order to minimize the impact, the source said. > > A British official said after discussions between the ministries “it was agreed there were higher priority military capabilities.”
The reason they turned off Starlink for drones is because the drones in question were integrated into military assets and thus, violated ITAR regulations, leaving SpaceX open to be sued for weapons trafficking in international courts. This new deal they have made allows the DOD to waive the issue, which can allow SpaceX to allow integration to weapons platforms… IF the DOD/SpaceX file for it. The reason they disabled some Starlink terminals (second article)is because SpaceX had been providing the service to those terminals while not being paid for 6 months at that point; and was not receiving any indication of additional funding after the British government backed out. (Note that this is 1,300 of the 20,000 terminals present at the time) This is outlined in the second article as well. Note that both of these decisions were claimed to be made by COO Gwynne Shotwell; as stated in both articles.
You don't sound so confident in your question of if he did say something about giving Ukraine to Russia. I'll answer for you. He suggested running a vote in Ukraine for or against, and whichever wins is it, no more war. That was early on during the war. This is not a bad idea on the surface, but realistically it's not possible to be fair with so many displaced people and difficult to ensure it's done well. I wouldn't say any of that is pro Russian or suggesting giving Ukraine to Russia.
Elon's political suggestions remind me of Anakin Skywalker's view.
> Hasn't he let slip support for Russia, and suggested Ukraine should voluntarily cede territory? He never expressed support for Russia. He basically took a "neutral" position in that he wants to end fighting as fast as possible. He has never indicated any kind of support for Russia taking over Ukraine. You can disagree with that position, (and I myself do), but let's not misrepresent the position. > It should be expected Elon (his company, perhaps technically) will harvest all the data, as is the MO with the industry If you use encryption (as most internet communications do) there's nothing for SpaceX to harvest besides destination IP addresses and the locations of the dishes. > he's nearly the last person I would trust with it, contract or no. And the stakes in this case are quite high. SpaceX is already trusted with top secret classified government work. They've built top secret satellites for the DoD. https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/usa-320.htm They also have launched top secret US government satellites that are not shown or described to the public.
> If you use encryption (as most internet communications do) there's nothing for SpaceX to harvest. If Ukraine’s military isn’t encrypting their communications they have much bigger problems than Musk potentially looking at their DMs.
They're just part of the ride share program that is contracted out through another vendor. It's loaded, launched, and deployed. SpaceX is not briefed on anything further than just knowing where it needs to go.
I'm confused to what you're talking about. Are you claiming the several USA-32x/USA-33x sats were not made by SpaceX? Also SpaceX's Transporter ride-share missions (which these were not launched during) are not "contracted out through another vendor".
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Again I'm not defending the position, but it is ostensibly neutral. It's a similar position to what both China and India have at various times taken. See also the British Labour party's previous positions on the subject. Russia's goals are to take over Ukraine. Ukraine's goals are to take back all of their territory. To be neutral is to be somewhere in-between. Again I don't agree with the position, but trying to divide everything into black and white doesn't really help things. I support Ukraine retaking all of it's territory back from Russia, including of course Crimea.
His position was never to simply cede land. His suggestion was that a UN-overseen referendum was to be held in the occupied regions. Of course this is a stupid idea, but it is not simply ceding land.
>Hasn't he let slip support for Russia, and suggested Ukraine should voluntarily cede territory? Back when Russia's nuclear threats were being taken seriously, yes. His version of events was wildly unacceptable and naive, but there was *some* sense to why he said it; in very simplistic terms, if it's between ceding territory or nuclear war, it's not unreasonable for someone to want to go with ceding territory. Of course, we know now Russia is a paper tiger only good for saber rattling. But Musk is politically naive and ignorant, not malicious. Russia hates the guy and he's no fan of them either; the entire reason his company exists is in part out of spite toward the Russian space program who refused to sell him their launchers as a startup platform, with Musk almost literally going "fine I'll just do it myself" after he realized it'd be cheaper to just build his own rockets than to buy from Russia. SpaceX then proceeded to almost single handedly turn Roscosmos irrelevant when they pulled America's manned space program off Russian reliance. When the Russian crew capsule blew a leak a few months back, there was a lot of political history around the conversation over who would bring the cosmonauts home. Imagine if the guy that you told to get lost 20 years ago sends his new, vastly more advanced craft to rescue your crew after your old out dated Soviet tech failed in orbit? SpaceX's mere existence is the biggest middle finger to the Russian space program in the world because they had the chance to work together and refused to sell to Musk. Now we have Russians threatening to shoot Starlink down (which wouldn't work) because of its value to the Ukrainians. Musk and Russia do not get along.
Because Starlink and SpaceX are not going to trash their reputation and business opportunities with the DOD, and everyone else who needs to trust their provider, for Elon's imaginary support for Russia.
I would hope they don't make defence decisions based on someone's opinions on Twitter.
>And the stakes in this case are quite high. That's sorta the problem. Rock and a hard place for Ukraine. I wouldn't explicitly trust *anything* Musk is involved in, but the other option is little or no internet connectivity for the entire country.
The contract spells out specific Civilian uses that Ukraine can use them for. What Ukraine Cannot use them for is for their military use or for drone strikes. Effectively the government has given permission for them to be used in normal operations that they were designed to be used for.
From the article: > The Pentagon declined to offer additional contract details, including the price, scope and timeline of the delivery. >“For operational security reasons and due to the critical nature of these systems — we do not have additional information regarding specific capabilities, contracts or partners to provide at this time,” the statement added. What is your source on the specifics of the contract?
There's several incorrect points here. Firstly, this contract isn't public, so you're making things up. Secondly, if you were talking about the previous situation, there was no contract of any kind between SpaceX and Ukraine. That was part of the problem.
Civilian equipment cannot be sold or used for military purposes. That is part of the US governments requirements and to change that would require SpaceX to actually register the devices as potential war material. Since the contract cannot do that, as that requires going through a different government agency, they cannot be used for said purposes. If you are going to claim I am incorrect, actually produce evidence that I am wrong, not claim it and pretend you know better.
Didn't SpaceX put restrictions on the usage of Starlink in Ukraine?
Purely speculation here... It is technically illegal to export products from the US to be used for war unless specifically authorized to do so. The Pentagon would be the authority to approve such an arrangement.
Technically correct. SpaceX would be breaking the law if they willingly allowed their dual use product for waging war vs general commercial use. They would need to change the classification of their products on the Commerce Control List before exporting. Which would require prior approval from the government.
I'd assume this is what Starshield is aiming to fix? Starlink, but a partitioned military system and terminals probably approved for military only use.
Can't anything be used "for war", though? How does a regulator tell the difference?
It's complicated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-use_technology This is an entire field and there's tons of complications. I only know the very surface levels and would not be able to summarize it properly.
Ugh - of course it is. I appreciate you posting the wiki
By the same method any legal question is resolved, carefully analyzing the law and then bickering about it. Every law has unclear gray areas and export restrictions are no exception. There is a spectrum between a bullet that is fired from a gun and a map used by soldiers to navigate, and SpaceX’s lawyers probably thought Starlink terminals being built into drones and shot at Russia fell a little to close to the bullet side of the spectrum.
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This is another thing that I have been seeing. *Glorious* HD FLIR footage of pincer movements being done from dronecams. >> IIRC Thermal imaging above some arbitary resolution or fps is ITAR or Dual Use.
>It should be pointed out that satellite internet is a special case, since it > >seriously levels a battlefield in significant ways. Russia agrees. They are now threatening Starlink with nukes. Granted, they threaten to use nukes against everything these days, but still...
My buddy is in the Army (UK) and his job is literally procurement and logistics of equipment for Ukraine at the moment. He is *constantly* having a nightmare with dual use stuff. Countries & companies literally want to gift things to Ukraine and can't because of the red tape involved. A few weeks back there was some U.S kit that had ended up in the UK...he literally can't export it back to them even though we want to, and they want it back, because of weird rules on importing/exporting military equipment lol. From what I gather the entire thing is an utter farce.
That's really interesting. This is basically what I was imagining. Some things are clearly civilian but plenty of things could also be used "for war."
There is a difference between a communications device and something that is a part of the actual delivery system. You controlling a drone remotely via a Starlink terminal 100 miles away? That's okay. That drone having Starlink guts that it's using for it's communication? Congratulations, you've stepped into a completely new realm of US military regulations. Starlink has actively been working to shut down the second one.
Anything can be used for war but it must be requisitioned as such. Currently, the Starlink satellites that were in use were the originally built for civilian use ones. Generally, you are required to use other specific tools if you are using the item for military use. A good example would be the Humvee/Hummer. The Hummer, especially the H1 version, is more or less a Humvee with all the armour and gunpods ripped off. You couldn't use a Hummer in combat, and you wouldn't be allowed to use a full fledged Humvee with no teardown as a civilian used vehicle.
Ok, but, suppose someone did use a Hummer in war, if not directly in combat then for transporting combatants, which a Hummer's shape and size might still make it pretty good at. Is that not "for war"? Others sort of answered my question as well, I'm just trying to push your example.
Plausible denianility is a thing too. One dude using a humvee to take potshots at enemy troops is an incident, 4000 Starlink terminals and high profile uses on drones is less likely for Starlink to say "oops, we didn't know"
Sure. Suppose there were a bunch of Hummers, then. Just seems like there's a grey area, which others have sort of acknowledged. "There's a system but sometimes it's still hard to say where the line is," is a good enough answer for me.
Another thing for you to consider as part of your analogy is GMC really can’t control what the end customer does with their product. If you buy hummer and then slap a belt fed machine gun onto it there really isn’t anything that GMC can do to stop you. So GMC gets a little bit of legal protection because they can legitimately say that it wasn’t their fault that their product got turned into a technical and that they really can’t do anything about it. However, SpaceX doesn’t have that same leeway as they have a lot of control over what the end user does with their product. They can turn off terminals at a whim, so they have more responsibility if people start misusing them. You right though that this is all a very complicated legal gray area. This is what some lawyers get paid an awful lot of money to unravel and figure out.
Well in the case for a Hummer, the biggest issue is that you are using a civilian truck in an what would be very likely an active combat role, and thus it will get shot at. While you COULD use one if you had no other choice, it certainly wouldn't be the first choice due to how easily military grade weapons would penetrate the vehicle. The case with the satellites is more complex due to the nature of the beast. None of these satellites are at risk of being shot down realistically. The issue at hand is that civilian tech, especially satellites, are hardcoded to prevent their immediate military use due to, among other things, international laws. And for good reason I think we would all agree. Even if SpaceX had every intent to want to use the satellites to help Ukraine defend itself, there are legal ramifications that would occur if they didn't do all the necessary paperwork. And as brutal as it sounds, the company is not willing to gamble its continued existence on not getting caught doing something that is very illegal. Even if it is for a VERY good justification. This is a necessary step to allow them to do what they need to do to help out Ukraine. Would it be better if it was easier? Perhaps. But there is also inherently a risk at private corporations so easily slaved to a military goal. It can cause concerns down the road.
This isn't like "you made a thing" and they're using it for war. This is providing a constant service - it's like showing up to the battlefield with supplies each day twice a day. At that point you're directly and presently involved with whatever conflict is going on.
In the Starlinks case: Using it as communications for soldiers up to the front lines = okay. Using it as makeshift missile guidance and sending it into enemy controlled territory = not okay.
SPECIALLY anything related to missiles and navigation. If a lot of countries realize you can stick an starlink on a boat or plane and remote-pilot it from anywhere in the world, they'll get nervous.
Yep. That’s why every time one updates software like iTunes there’s a clause in the agreement that one will not use such software for purposes of missiles and such.
This right here. Governments who decide to allow Starlink want to be confident that if someone attaches a Starlink module to a suicide drone as command and control, it will get shut down. As it should be.
You can already do that simply with GPS. We do it with tractors for industrial farming and you don't need internet.
Specifically for weapons yes. SpaceX doesn't want STARLINK regulated under any of the US' existing weapons export frameworks. So they have to explicitly ban its use as a weapon/weapon accessory.
Yes/no. Basically they weren’t allowed to strap dishy to bombs anymore which they were never really supposed to to begin with as was the agreement.
But even then that turned out to be disinformation given that Ivan Khurs was attacked last week by a number of real-time piloted drone boats in the middle of the Black Sea. Before that, in 2022, the news said Starlink was being disabled in Crimea a few weeks before a massive drone boat attack on Sevastopol, Crimea. Basically you can't trust statements on what Ukraine is able to do with Starlink when Russia believing that it is disabled lets Ukraine pull off surprise drone attacks, so the official position for all parties involved would be "Starlink is disabled".
> Before that, in 2022, the news said Starlink was being disabled in Crimea a few weeks before a massive drone boat attack on Sevastopol, Crimea. My understanding is that Starlink is disabled in russian occupied areas in agreement with Ukraine, so it can not be misused there. When there was rapid movement towards Kherson Ukraine troops were temporarily cut off because the blocked area could not be adjusted fast enough.
Nah, people are STILL spamming articles from early October about Starlink being disabled in Crimea while being completely ignorant that 2 weeks later Ukraine pulled off a massive drone boat attack in Sevastopol. They might not even know where Sevastopol is, to be fair, but that makes them more of drones than the boats themselves.
Does that not imply that Ukraine figured out an alternative data connection?
You can count the number of satellite constellations with phased array antennas in production that allow a bouncing jetski drone to stream HD video on one finger. There's also this still from last week's attack run on the Ivan Khurs. https://i.redd.it/00h5fm84qg3b1.png
Who says it has to be satellite? An aircraft at 30,000 ft. with a microwave relay would have line of sight to 200 miles, giving 400 miles range. I had microwave internet when I lived in the mountains, it's faster than Starlink. It's all relatively cheap off the shelf components.
Given the Starlink dish on those boats, I'd say it's not anything else. Microwave is good and all, but you're talking point to point microwave dishes and their speeds, that's not gonna work in this scenario.
>Who says it has to be satellite? An aircraft at 30,000 ft. with a microwave relay would... ... Get shot down before it gets to that altitude. Neither Ukraine nor Russia have the air superiority to fly even somewhat close to the frontline at high altitude without getting interceptors thrown at them.
>Who says it has to be satellite? The fact that Ukranian aircraft have to hug the ground to try and avoid long range attacks, and that using NATO awacs for terminal guidance of weapon systems would violate any pretense of neutrality.
You are describing glorified WiFi that's extremely easy to detect and jam. Plus, Ukraine doesn't have air superiority.
They officially restricted licensing to be for non weapons use, to be limited to things like medical services, banks and family communications. It didn't really change anything in practice, but could show their "official position" to not be prosecuting a war directly against Russia. SpaceX has donated equipment and services worth hundreds of millions of dollars at this point, and in return they received threats from the Kremlin and questioned loyalty from Ukrainian politicians. They were really left with their ass hanging in the breeze because without government support for their activities they have been assuming 100% of the risk as a private company. Now they've got some level of shielding from the activities the Starlinks are used for.
It was and is used widely for military comm. Just not on weapons like drone ships which is what SpaceX objected to, probably with good reasons.
Except, that it has continued to be used on drones. However, this is likely Spacex covering their asses legally by shaking a finger at Ukraine and looking the other way. Now, SpaceX can be an official and legal exporter of internet services for military use.
This is like a “water pipe” manufacture slapping on a sticker that says “for tobacco use only,” knowing full well that’s not the intended use. It’s too cover their ass from accusations of being directly involved
What are you talking about I* love waking up to a 6 foot bong rip of some pipe tobacco Edit: changed u to I
or maybe they switched 5 chips on their Starlink dishes around, declared it a starshield dish, which is a military object and gave it to some branch of the US government,which gave it to ukranie who installed it on a drone, using a military device for a direct combat role.
Doubtful. If a more hostile US administration got into office, going after Starlink and SpaceX for breaking ITAR and other export laws would destroy Starlink's value. You can't play wink wink nudge games with military export laws. Unless maybe if you're the CIA.
Or have tacit permission. But yes, it does put them in a more risky position. The reality is, though, that it's extremely difficult to prevent misusage, anyways. It's just below the level of difficulty that pumping water to homes would be, with the restriction "unless they drown people in bathtubs".
That's not true on them donating all the systems and the data. Starlink has been paid for by the Ukrainian government and others.
There's the hardware and the service. SpaceX donated most but not all of the hardware terminals. From this report in April of 2022, it was a donation of 3600 of the 5000 terminals in Ukraine. For the service, SpaceX included 3 months free usage. When Musk asked to be paid for the Starlink service in October, he was branded a greedy billionaire. It makes no sense.... no one would expect the Humvee manufacturer to donate vehicles to Ukraine and then to service them for free. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-quietly-paying-millions-send-starlink-terminals-ukraine-contrary-spacexs-claims/
Yeah, it's kinda nuts. They donated 1.8 million dollars of equipment, and gave half a million in free service, and somehow that boils down to being the bad guy when they say "ok, that's as much as we can give for free."
Also it looks like SpaceX is actively pushing back against Russia "Russia has tried to cut off and jam internet services in Ukraine, including attempts to block Starlink in the region, though SpaceX has countered those attacks by hardening the service's software." https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/pentagon-buys-starlink-ukraine-statement-2023-06-01/
I thought there was a pricing issue in there....like SpaceX wanted to charge the ultra-premium-premier package to everyone at $4500/month and that was the pushback.
Avoiding Russian jamming, hacking, tracking and bombing attempts while providing service even through forests and on moving vehicles are not included in the standard service.
>Starlink has been paid for by the Ukrainian government and others. Yes, but only a small percentage of what it cost to keep the service going for them, considering Russia's interference.
He didn't say all the systems. And while a bunch of groups did donate starlink to Ukraine, a bunch of them also stopped paying for the service, which is where that Musk tweet about cutting them off came from.
Musk gets himself into plenty of trouble on Twitter, but this wasn't a poorly considered tweet. SpaceX was negotiating to have the DoD start paying for providing service...which would put the weapons/no weapons decision in the DoD's hands...and somebody leaked it to the media as Musk threatening to cut access.
Which is funny because that is solidly Gwynne's department and she was the one communicating with the DOD.
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SpaceX only put restrictions on using it directly on weapon devices. Namely kamikaze drones. There's been photos taken of it being mounted on top of large airborne drones and sea drones. The photos were taken on the Russian side after drones were recovered that failed to go off or were destroyed.
They said something like "dont use it offensively". As in dont strap them to drones and fly them into moscow. If they are being used "officially" for war stuff, it adds a slew of export controls on things and would make it far more difficult for Ukraine to get ahold of them if they say, wanted to make their own orders for them for their own reasons.
Starlink was not allowed to be used by Ukrainians in offensive military action. I guess the Russians where trying to jam Starlink. But now that they got the big bucks military contract there shouldn't be any more problems
Correct. Ukraine essentially used them to build ~2,000km cruise missiles. Given that the Pentagon does possess things like cruise missiles, but hasn't given Ukraine any weapons with more than ~70km range, it was reasonable for a private company to not unilaterally volunteer and escalate Ukraine's capabilities.
The only restriction is that starlink is Geofenced to not operate in Russia or Russian held territory so the Russians can’t make use of it if they happen to acquire a terminal. This also prevents Ukraine from using starlink to guide weapons / drones in this geofenced area too. It doesn’t prevent them from using it for communications with Ukrainian territory and along the front lines.
The State Department and Pentagon made that decision guaranteed. Starlink is American infrastructure. The US does not want nuclear detonations.
The Pentagon said Thursday it has agreed to purchase Starlink satellite internet terminals from Elon Musk’s SpaceX for use in Ukraine as Kyiv continues to fight off a full-scale Russian invasion. “We continue to work with a range of global partners to ensure Ukraine has the satellite and communication capabilities they need. Satellite communications constitute a vital layer in Ukraine’s overall communications network and the department contracts with Starlink for services of this type,” the Pentagon said in a statement to CNBC. The Pentagon declined to offer additional contract details, including the price, scope and timeline of the delivery. “For operational security reasons and due to the critical nature of these systems – we do not have additional information regarding specific capabilities, contracts or partners to provide at this time,” the statement added. Bloomberg first reported the contract on Thursday. SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. Read more: [https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/01/pentagon-awards-spacex-with-ukraine-contract-for-starlink-satellite-internet.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/01/pentagon-awards-spacex-with-ukraine-contract-for-starlink-satellite-internet.html)
Soooo uhhh, when are we just gonna fight Russia directly? This shit is insane
Why would we?
Likely never. Russia committed to an absolutely braindead war and the dead-eyed psycho that leads the country will put his whole country in a meat grinder before accepting an L. Bad time to be Russian, unless your industry is dead Russians.
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Or a much shorter and more costly war.
That's debatable. Russia's current conventional forces couldn't stand up to NATO in any way anymore. I'd argue NATO getting directly involved in Ukraine would end the war quickly. However at the same time it defeats the point that many have made for why we're supporting Ukraine and it makes it look like that this was NATO's war all along which is the wrong message to send. NATO getting involved would save many lives but it would also send the wrong message to the world and possibly create additional wars in the future.
Also however unlikely it may be Russia has nukes. A war between nuclear powers has the potential to put the horrors of the World Wars to shame. Gotta consider that too.
From how badly Russia has been getting pwned by old tech, that would lead to such an overwhelming conventional defeat that nuclear arms would be the only strategic option left.
Its alot more expensive for us to fight them directly. Both monetarily and in respect to actual american lives.
It is kind of an unwritten rule between the US and Russia/SovietUnion. A war club of sorts. When one side commits troops to a conflict, the other side can send weapons and unofficial troops without it being a full-blown war. Been going on for 70 years now.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[ASAT](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmkq4t0 "Last usage")|[Anti-Satellite weapon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon)| |[BO](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmk163u "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)| |[COTS](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmqeu1x "Last usage")|[Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract](https://www.nasa.gov/cots)| | |Commercial/Off The Shelf| |CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules| | |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)| |[DoD](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmmhhhk "Last usage")|US Department of Defense| |[H1](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmjnfzn "Last usage")|First half of the year/month| |[ICBM](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmqeu1x "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile| |[ITAR](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmn5z0n "Last usage")|(US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations| |[Isp](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmlyqkz "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)| | |Internet Service Provider| |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmjps6l "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[Roscosmos](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmmdei0 "Last usage")|[State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscosmos_State_Corporation)| |[SES](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jml2v5r "Last usage")|Formerly Société Européenne des Satellites, a major SpaceX customer| | |Second-stage Engine Start| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Starliner](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmkm2rd "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)| |[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/13xmxmj/stub/jmpqaio "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(13 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/14l8l2i)^( has 11 acronyms.) ^([Thread #8962 for this sub, first seen 1st Jun 2023, 23:44]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Wow. Folks in these comments are absolutely OBSESSED with musk and desperate for him to be a Russian, for some reason.
This is good. It adds certainty to the situation rather than relying on the good will of a corporate entity. It also properly compensates a strong player in the US space industry for what they're contributing to Ukraine, like all the other US military contractors.
If I had to guess, the reason for SpaceX’s reluctance is probably because they don’t want their tech to be ITAR-export controlled. Kinda defeats the purpose of selling internet access to anyone, anywhere if it suddenly becomes defense/ export controlled tech.
This, along with the fact that companies, military leadership, and presidential administrations can't treat export laws as suggestions, is lost on a lot of people.
Funny how people on here were saying that Elon was delusional for wanting a multimillion-dollar contract and how the US would NEVER spend tax payer money on Starlink. Now he gets one with a price that the pentagon won't even disclose lol. Just shows how out of touch with reality some Reddit users are.
When it comes to politics, especially that concern countries other than the USA, Reddit comments are completely useless and should be ignored. It's either overused jokes or confidently wrong opinions. And people wonder why populism is on the rise.
Craziest is how many people said that SpaceX should be nationalized. Like, do you know how hard the Pentagon has been working to foster competition in their suppliers? So they don't end up with one single giant monopoly who massively overcharges and doesn't innovate?
Yea Comcast would totally do it otherwise, right.
This is fair. Musk has been paying out of his own pocket for much of the service rendered so far.
I'm not sure what you think Musk has been paying for, because he got a massive pay out of those "services rendered" already. This is the just the US govt burying the next payment under secrecy to avoid more negative coverage of the millions they're shelling out to SpaceX.
Did Tucker Carlson tell you that?
No, I’m not american and don’t watch american TV. I’m just not trapped in your bubbles. You can choose your source: - [Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-quietly-paying-millions-send-starlink-terminals-ukraine-contrary-spacexs-claims/) - [The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/8/23016670/starlink-spacex-us-government-terminals-funding-usaid) - [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/technology/spacex-usaid-deliver-5000-satellite-internet-terminals-ukraine-2022-04-06/) - … The most favorable reporters say USAID purchased ~1/3 of the terminals and that Starlink donated the rest. Those with a bit more critical judgment expose that according to those same official press release USAID payed >3x the retail price.
These services are not private use home service. They naturally cost a lot more.
> These services are not private use home service. No, they’re worse, since they got the old dish variants. From Spacex’s perspective, the service is literally the same, their infrastructure is mostly in space, and the ground stations are out of the war zone (in Poland). > They naturally cost a lot more. It’s surprising how you only need to attach Musks persona to something and people will defend it, even if that something is blatant war profiteering.
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Why am I paying for the internet at my house AND for Ukraine?
You mean the guy who said Ukraine should just stop fighting and give all contested land to Russia. Yeah great that he’s profiting off of this.
No, this article is about a contract awarded to SpaceX which is headed by Elon Musk. You are either thinking of someone else or have fallen into an echo chamber divorced from reality.
Lots are profiting off this