Starshield will use the Starlink internet constellation to develop new products for the military market
WASHINGTON — SpaceX on Dec. 2 unveiled a new business segment, called Starshield, aimed at U.S. state security agencies.
This sector of SpaceX intends to use the Starlink internet constellation in low Earth orbit to develop products and services – including secure communications, remote sensing and space surveillance payloads – that are increasingly in demand by US defense and intelligence organizations.
“While Starlink is designed for personal and commercial use, Starshield is designed for government use, with an initial focus on three areas: Earth observation, communications and hosted payloads,” the company said on its website.
The Starshield site is heavily marketed and poorly detailed, but conveys SpaceX’s vision of disrupting the national security satellite sector, similar to launch, commercial broadband, and civilian space.
“SpaceX’s ongoing collaboration with the Department of Defense and other partners demonstrates our ability to deploy space and ground capabilities at scale,” the company said.
These statements suggest that as SpaceX expanded its reach into the national security launch and satellite broadband markets, it decided to offer more specialized products in order to win large contracts. Starshield will offer “end-to-end systems”, ie complete services from launchers to satellites and user terminals.
“It seems they finally understood that going purely commercial and asking national security space customers to use them doesn’t always work, so they will offer alternative products that focus on national security, but on Starlink technology and production lines,” an industry analyst told SpaceNews.
Starshield’s products and services include satellites with sensor payloads capable of delivering processed data directly to the user, secure global communications and user equipment, and custom satellite buses.
The offerings for satellite communications services would draw on the company’s experience in Ukraine, where Starlink demonstrated it can operate in a combat zone and proved more resilient than the US military would have expected from a commercial system. The Air Force has purchased Starlink services to support units in Europe and Africa due to the system’s ability to operate in a hostile electronic environment.
Starshield also benefits from SpaceX’s involvement in the US Space Force Space Development Agency’s missile tracking and missile detection constellation, where the company worked with Leidos to develop four classified infrared sensor satellites, scheduled for launch before the end of the year.
SpaceX will offer to host “classified payloads and securely process data to meet the most demanding regulatory requirements,” the company said.
Starshield satellites would be fitted with laser terminals to make them interoperable with military satellites. Interoperability is a key requirement as the US Department of Defense wants to use commercial satellite capacity in low Earth orbit to transport the data collected by remote sensing systems. Defense officials warned that the current Starlink network cannot be integrated into a hybrid architecture that DoD hopes to build due to its highly proprietary technology.
SpaceX also promises “rapid deployment and development” of capabilities, an argument that resonates with DoD space purchasing agencies, which have been frustrated by the slow pace and high cost of satellite acquisitions for years.
Some of the more advanced features advertised by Starshield will likely not be available until SpaceX deploys its second generation Starlink satellites. These will be larger than the first generation version and will be equipped with features needed to host national security payloads and offer higher levels of encryption than the commercial Starlink service.
To date, SpaceX has launched approximately 3,500 first-generation Starlink satellites and recently received licensing approval to deploy Gen2 spacecraft.