Four Senate Democrats are seeking insights from SpaceX on the degradation of the company’s military Starshield system for Ukraine.
On Oct. 14, Ukrainian officials reported a lack of access to Starshield and its commercial counterpart, Starlink, for host systems traveling more than 100 miles per hour. Ukraine has had particular need for such systems in the effort to counter the advent of Russian jet-powered one way attack drones, such as the Geran-4 and Geran-5.
“This [speed] restriction was particularly devastating to the Ukrainian military’s drone capabilities during an ongoing Russian bombing campaign in Kyiv,” according to a Monday letter to Christopher Cardaci, SpaceX’s counsel, from Senators Christopher Coons, D-Del., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee; Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the second ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC); Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., another SASC member; and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
While SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said that responsibility for the Starshield and Starlink restrictions lies with the White House, not his company.
“These circumstances raise important questions about the respective technical, contractual, and operational authorities retained by SpaceX and the U.S. government, as well as the ability SpaceX has to restrict access to either Starshield or Starlink services during military operations or national security emergencies,” according to the senators’ letter.
By Nov. 2, the senators want responses from SpaceX on a number of questions, including all U.S. government/SpaceX communications that led to the restriction and the date when SpaceX notified the German government of the restrictions, as Germany funds Ukraine’s access to Starlink.
