SpaceX received its first contract for Starshield, the defense-focused model of its Starlink satellite tv for pc web service, from the U.S. House Drive.

The one-year contract has a most worth of $70 million, a U.S. Air Drive consultant informed Bloomberg. The contract “gives for Starshield end-to-end service through the Starlink constellation, consumer terminals, ancillary tools, community administration and different associated providers,” the consultant stated. It was awarded on September 1.

SpaceX shall be obligated $15 million by the tip of this month, and the contract is anticipated to help over 50 mission companions throughout all arms of the U.S. navy.

Satellite tv for pc-based communications methods – and Starlink particularly – have been thrown into the highlight through the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when SpaceX activated the service in Ukraine and despatched massive shipments of the Starlink terminals to be used by civilians and the Ukrainian navy.

However Starlink’s function in Ukrainian protection was contested, particularly by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk himself. Whereas Musk appeared to help sending Starlink terminals to the Ukranian navy at first, it was later revealed that he refused to activate the service when Ukraine requested previous to a deliberate assault on Russia’s navy.

Starshield, introduced final December, will hopefully clear up a lot of the paradox round utilizing a industrial service in battle operations. When the corporate introduced Starshield, it famous on its web site that the service “leverages SpaceX’s Starlink know-how and launch functionality to help nationwide safety efforts,” although offering scant different particulars.

Starlink must be a civilian community, not a participant to fight.

Starshield shall be owned by the US authorities and managed by DoD House Drive.

That is the proper order of issues.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 27, 2023

Certainly, whereas SpaceX didn’t touch upon the brand new contract, Musk posted on X that the division between Starlink and Starshield as serving civilian and protection prospects respectively is “the proper order of issues.”

The U.S. House Drive has proven equal curiosity in boosting its satellite tv for pc web capacities. Starlink is probably going particularly engaging as a result of it leverages a “proliferated” structure of (what is going to finally be) many 1000’s of satellites in low Earth orbit. Having so many asset in house, fairly than a handful of beautiful satellites, implies that the general system is extra resilient to assault by adversaries.