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SpaceX Starshield

SpaceX plays an important role in national defense for the U.S. government. SpaceX is developing a specific product called Starshield for use by the U.S. Department of Defense. Starshield leverages SpaceX's existing satellite technology and launch capability to support national security efforts. While Starlink is designed for consumer and commercial use, Starshield is designed for government use, with an initial focus on three areas: Earth observation, communications, and hosted payloads.

Starlink’s GSA offering is meant for customers needing commercial, highthroughput, low-latency broadband connectivity for a wide array of civil government, non-military use cases. Government buyers with military-specific end uses should consider the capabilities provided by SpaceX’s Starshield Services, which were specifically developed with U.S. Department of Defense needs in mind.

Starshield Communications Services are meant to support U.S. National Defense use cases. Starshield hardware and services are not currently available on this GSA Schedule; rather, they are available for procurement through the U.S. Space Force Commercial Satellite Communications Office (CSCO) Proliferated Low-Earth Orbit (PLEO) contract.

pLEO stands for proliferated low Earth orbit. This means a constellation of many (hundreds or thousands, potentially) satellites orbiting at altitudes of less than 2000 km. Many current space-based military systems are orbiting further from the earth in orbits called medium Earth orbit (MEO) or geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO).

A proliferated architecture of small satellites allows for resilience by providing capabilities that are not compromised by disruption or defeat of a small number of assets. By employing such design principles as mesh networks, the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) is built to continue functioning in the event that individual nodes become unavailable. The satellites that comprise the PWSA are also smaller, cheaper, and quicker to deliver and replace than some of our exquisite defense space assets deployed in limited quantities.

SDA’s model relies on proliferation as a key tenet. And the initial architecture will be primarily in low Earth orbit. Low Earth orbit offers a number of benefits when compared to orbits of higher altitude, including less expensive orbit insertion, better viewing geometries for space-based earth observation, and lower latencies and power requirements for communications transmissions to terrestrial systems. For these reasons, there has also been an emergence of technology providers in the commercial sector seeking to deliver communications capabilities through satellite constellations in LEO. These are some of the reason why SDA will initially proliferate capabilities in LEO.

The Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), formerly known as the “National Defense Space Architecture,” was renamed to more specifically reflect the agency’s mission to deliver needed space-based capabilities to the joint warfighter to support terrestrial missions through development, fielding, and operation of a proliferated low Earth orbit (pLEO) constellation of satellites. The spiral development and fielding of SDA’s mesh network has matured successfully, but the constellations’ original name did not accurately convey its current scope and purpose. The new name was the outcome of an internal process that included SDA staff, SDA leadership, and Department of the Air Force leadership. The new constellation name became effective January 23, 2023.

Starlink and Starshield build on the company’s experience in launch vehicle and spacecraft design, development, production, and on-orbit operations. Operating in low Earth orbit (LEO), Starlink provides high-speed, low latency broadband to commercial users in all 50 states and around the world, and today serves over two million households and businesses. By focusing service on households that previously lacked access to reliable broadband service, Starlink is helping to rapidly address the digital divide. And with Starshield, SpaceX is applying Starlink technology and launch capability to support vital national security efforts for the DOD.

Five informed sources said that SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a secret contract with a US intelligence agency, indicating close ties between the space company owned by billionaire businessman Elon Musk and national security agencies. The sources added that SpaceX's Starshield unit is responsible for building the satellite network under a $1.8 billion contract signed in 2021 with the National Reconnaissance Office, an intelligence agency that manages spy satellites.

The plans reveal the extent of SpaceX's participation in American intelligence and military projects and illustrate the significant investment made by the US Department of Defense (the Pentagon) in low-Earth orbit satellite systems that aim to support ground forces. The sources said that if the program is successful, it will greatly enhance the ability of the US government and the US Army to quickly monitor potential targets almost anywhere in the world.

Reuters reports reveal for the first time that the SpaceX contract aims to build a powerful new spy system that includes hundreds of satellites that can image the Earth and can operate as a group in low orbits, and that the intelligence agency that cooperated with Musk's company is the National Reconnaissance Office. The sources explained that satellites can track targets on the ground and share that data with American intelligence and military officials. The sources added that this will initially allow the US government to quickly obtain images of activities occurring on the ground almost anywhere in the world, which will assist in intelligence and military operations.

Reuters stated that they do not know when this plan will be implemented, and SpaceX - the largest satellite operator in the world - refused to comment, as did the Pentagon. The NRO did respond, but in a very limited way: "The National Reconnaissance Office is developing the most diverse and flexible intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance system the world has ever seen."

Although it has not yet become operational, about 40 prototypes have reportedly already been launched by SpaceX. These satellites can track targets on the ground and share the information with both intelligence agencies and the US military. "In principle, this will allow the US government to quickly take continuous pictures of activities in the field almost anywhere on the globe, while assisting intelligence and military operations," the sources noted. One of them even explained that "no one can hide," referring to the potential capabilities of these satellites.

The DoD’s all-domain intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) enterprise is pursuing the development and integration of transformative capabilities needed to detect, track, and target current and future threats posed by potential adversaries. Autonomous sensing is one such innovative capability emerging as an integral technology enabler of space based tactical ISR in order to meet increasingly demanding target tracking challenges. This paradigm shift from traditional spacebased surveillance systems and CONOPS to increasingly more autonomous mission operations depend on distributed and disaggregated space architectures controlled and supervised by on-orbit autonomous agents for data processing, information analysis, and course-of-action (COA) decision-making.

Among these new space architectures being considered are proliferated LEO (pLEO) satellite constellations which will require many more satellites for coverage compared to other traditional orbit regimes and therefore will need to conduct mission operations in an entirely new way to minimize the large numbers of satellite operators otherwise needed to maintain the entire constellation, especially given tactical timelines requiring rapid on-orbit decision-making. One approach, therefore, to pLEO operations is for each satellite to have an onboard expert system, namely, an application using artificial intelligence (AI) to build a knowledge base which is then used to solve complex problems and make decisions without a human expert in the loop. In particular, on-orbit knowledge-based systems acting/reacting to events is central to decision-making for pLEO satellite constellations expected to coordinate and manage tipping & cueing operations among networked sensors and satellites for detecting and tracking targets.

SpaceX's increasing involvement in US' military deployment poses a new threat to world peace and stability, and may even impact the everyday lives of ordinary people around the world, Chinese experts warned after the company was reported to be building a powerful spy satellite network using hundreds of its satellites for US intelligence agencies.

The reason the NRO chose SpaceX was mainly due to the company's advantage in the number of small satellites it has in orbit, which allows for maximum coverage of more orbital levels, Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military expert and media commentator, told the Global Times 17 March 2024. "The large number of satellites can enable the monitoring of a certain area without any blind spots, not only in coverage but also in time duration, thereby creating an all-encompassing spy network above the heads of all countries around the world," Wei said.

Starshield was established in December 2022, when the company announced it was "expanding its Starlink satellite technology into military applications." The target customers of Starshield includes the Pentagon and other national security agencies. While the company tried hard to separate the two units to calm public worries, it is clear to all that the line is not so clear. Starshield will utilize the Starlink satellite constellation in low-Earth orbit to meet the growing needs of the US defense and intelligence agencies, media reports said, further blurring the boundary between civilian and military use.

Prior to this program, the Pentagon was already a big customer of SpaceX, using its Falcon 9 rockets to launch a dozen military payloads into space, according to media reports. "This move is very dangerous," Wei said, as once space becomes another arena for arms race, the company's assets could be in jeopardy. In addition, if this spy satellite network gets involved in a US-instigated "space war" and thus poses threats to other countries, SpaceX may become a target for retaliation or counterbalance.

Wang Ya'nan, chief editor of Aerospace Knowledge magazine, believes that countries and regions will definitely take countermeasures once the network become operational, such as by moving facilities underground or using optical camouflage for concealment. As a result, obtaining sensitive information would still not be "a piece of cake" for US intelligence agencies, Wang told the Global Times.

Nevertheless, observers believe the spy network will pose a new threat to global peace and security. "The US' extensive intelligence reconnaissance of countries or regions of interest will inevitably make some hot-button issues more sensitive or even escalate, and it will also make already complex international relationships more difficult to handle," Wang said.

Wei warned that the satellite system will not only monitor military targets but civilian targets as well, potentially exposing the daily lives of ordinary people to surveillance, which will have significant negative implications for information security and personal privacy protection worldwide. While the US incessantly hypes China's "growing threat" in space and advocates for "demilitarization," it has not stopped building up its military capabilities in the field, with the true aim of achieving a dominant position in space technology to support its superiority. "Due to the US' instigations, we may eventually have to face the fact that space has become a new battleground," Wang noted.