For much of October, Ukraine’s military found itself fighting with one hand tied behind its back. Restrictions on Elon Musk’s Starlink and Starshield networks disrupted battlefield communications and rendered some of Kyiv’s most effective interceptor drones practically useless against Russian attacks. Kyiv has learned a painful but valuable lesson: reliance on a single commercial provider, however capable or ostensibly friendly, constitutes a potentially catastrophic vulnerability.
SpaceX’s technology is a key ingredient of Ukraine’s war effort, underpinning everything from front line coordination to drone warfare and air defense. Musk believes Kyiv would fall without it. Now, Ukraine and its European allies are using his own technology to launch their escape effort.
On October 27, Ukrainian defense tech company HIMERA and Denmark’s GomSpace announced they had successfully tested OBRIA NANO, the first satellite around which a sovereign Ukrainian communications network is to be constructed. The satellite launched on October 1 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. OBRIA NANO and the constellation Kyiv hopes will follow may never rival Starlink’s scale, but the events of the past month leave Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his European counterparts no choice but to scramble for alternatives.
Starlink is without doubt an extraordinary technological achievement. Musk’s constellation has brought reliable internet connections to the depths of the Amazon rainforest, helped Iranian dissidents circumvent Tehran’s communications blackouts, and provided Ukrainian soldiers with a vital lifeline in their existential struggle against Russian invaders. Somewhere along the way, SpaceX established something approaching a monopoly on the kind of mobile, low-latency satellite communications modern militaries increasingly require.
America’s military-industrial complex has a long history of exploiting its technological superiority to cultivate influence over allied governments by providing military hardware, plus the spare parts and maintenance required to keep it operating, but commercial satellite communications have ushered in a new age of dependency. Unlike a tank or artillery shell, a satellite connection is a continuously provided service. Its owner retains ultimate technical control over where, when, and how it functions.
A military might purchase the terminal, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it controls the network. For years, this didn’t seem like a problem. Why would a successful company jeopardize lucrative government contracts by denying services to paying customers, particularly allies fighting a longstanding American rival?
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