How Elon Musk’s satellites have saved Ukraine and changed warfare
And the worries about what comes next
IT IS ONE of the wonders of the world—or, more accurately, off the world. The Starlink constellation currently consists of 3,335 active satellites; roughly half of all working satellites are Starlinks. In the past six months new satellites have been added at a rate of more than 20 a week, on average. SpaceX, the company which created Starlink, is offering it as a way of providing off-grid high-bandwidth internet access to consumers in 45 countries. A million or so have become subscribers.
And a huge part of the traffic flowing through the system currently comes from Ukraine. Starlink has become an integral part of the country’s military and civil response to Russia’s invasion. Envisaged as a celestial side-hustle that might help pay for the Mars missions dear to the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, it is not just allowing Ukraine to fight back; it is shaping how it does so, revealing the military potential of near-ubiquitous communications. “It’s a really new and interesting change,” says John Plumb, America’s assistant secretary of defence for space policy.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "The satellites that saved Ukraine"
More from Briefing
Why America is vulnerable to a despot
Its democratic system is not as robust as it seems
The world’s economic order is breaking down
Critics will miss globalisation when it is gone
America’s fiscal outlook is disastrous, but forgotten
On the campaign trail, both main candidates largely ignore the problem