Ukraine should create its own satellite group for the needs of the front and build pragmatic diplomatic relations with SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
Ukraine should create its own satellite group for the needs of the front and build pragmatic diplomatic relations with SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
Ukrainian IT entrepreneur, founder of defense companies The Fourth Law and Odd Systems, Yaroslav Azhnyuk, spoke about this in the UT-2 podcast.
According to the entrepreneur, building its own launch vehicles is not advisable for Ukraine, since this task has already been solved by its allies, and it is easier and cheaper for a private player to buy seats on Falcon 9 rockets. Instead, the focus should be shifted to creating domestic satellites.
«The first of the ambitious tasks is the Ukrainian Starlink and the Ukrainian constellation of satellites. Having normal contact with Musk, building satellites is much cheaper than launching rockets. Satellites for Ukraine can be not only communication, but also imaging in different spectra,» Azhnyuk noted.
The entrepreneur emphasized that Ukraine has unique knowledge of the needs of the modern «drone battlefield.» Combining this experience with the involvement of satellite developers and SpaceX’s capabilities in launching devices into orbit will allow creating a world-class technological product.
The entrepreneur paid special attention to the need to establish technological diplomacy with the management of SpaceX, comparing the company’s influence with the influence of entire states.
«We have embassies there, for example, in some country in South America. Brazil is a big country, for example. We need to have an embassy in Elon Musk. Who has more influence on Ukraine, Brazil or Elon Musk? Of course, Elon Musk. We need Ukrainian diplomacy to devote no less effort to cooperation with Elon Musk than to Brazil,» Azhnyuk emphasized.
He added that one should not be guided by short-term emotions regarding his posts online, and pointed out that it was thanks to Mikhail Fedorov’s pragmatic approach that it was possible to effectively block the use of Starlink terminals by Russian occupation forces on the front line at the beginning of the year.
