The company SpaceX received a contract with the Pentagon, thanks to which Ukraine can significantly expand its access to a more secure and militarized version of the Starlink satellite network called Starshield.
The company SpaceX received a contract with the Pentagon, thanks to which Ukraine can significantly expand its access to a more secure and militarized version of the Starlink satellite network called Starshield.
According to this contract, as Bloomberg writes , an additional 2,500 Starlink terminals already in Ukraine will get access to Starshield. At the same time, 500 Starlink terminals were already connected to Starshield earlier.
"A total of 3,000 terminals are serviced under two contracts," Bloomberg News said in a statement.
The publication writes that the previous contract on this matter was signed in August, before Donald Trump won the 2024 election, and President Joe Biden made one of the last attempts to increase military aid to Ukraine.
The value of the new contract was not disclosed, but the previous agreement for Starshield for European countries for 500 terminals was approximately $40 million.
In March of this year, dev.ua wrote that the SpaceX Starshield unit is building a network of spy satellites . Back in 2021, the company signed a $1.8 billion contract with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the intelligence agency of the US Department of Defense that manages satellite intelligence.
At that time, Reuters sources reported that if the new network is successfully launched, the US will be able to quickly identify the desired targets almost anywhere in the world.
