“IT’S A FACT: we’re in a space race.” So said Bill Nelson, the boss of NASA, on January 1st. If China managed to land on the Moon before America returned there, he warned, it could seize lunar resources for itself, and even tell America: “Keep out, we’re here, this is our territory.”
Mr Nelson is right to foresee a space race, but wrong to focus on the Moon. It has symbolic value, but no useful resources that cannot be obtained much more easily back on Earth. The next space race has been triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is happening closer to Earth. And it is one which America, thanks largely to a single company, is winning.
The company is SpaceX. Founded by Elon Musk to enable the colonisation of Mars, it makes very cheap, reusable rockets, whose first stages return from the upper atmosphere, landing gracefully on their tails. They have made the firm a space superpower: SpaceX now flies more things into orbit than all other companies and countries combined.
Since 2019 it has put that capacity to use building Starlink, a “mega-constellation” of satellites designed to beam the internet to places unreached by conventional broadband. In three years SpaceX has launched around 3,500 Starlink satellites, roughly half the total number of active satellites now in orbit. It plans to launch as many as 40,000.
Starlink is aimed at consumers. But early in the war Ukraine’s government asked SpaceX to send it the small, portable dishes that allow users to connect to the network. As our briefing explains, it has since become vital to the Ukrainian war effort. Soldiers use it to communicate, identify targets and upload footage for pr purposes. Satellite internet is not a new idea, even in a war zone. But Starlink represents a step-change in two ways. One is the sheer amount of capacity it offers. Previously, satellite links were largely reserved for senior officers, headquarters and drone pilots, with the bulk of lower-level communication handled by radio. Starlink means front-line troops can sling around videos, images and messages in real time, even as they advance beyond the reach of mobile networks. That provides the sort of tactical agility vital to modern warfare.
The second is its resistance to attack. Starlink has, so far, survived attempts to jam or hack it. Russia has said that its use in Ukraine makes it a legitimate military target. But whereas traditional satellite networks, made up of small numbers of big, complicated satellites, are vulnerable to anti-satellite missiles, Starlink is not. The number of satellites, and the speed with which SpaceX can replace them, make trying to shoot it down futile. The firm averaged around a launch a week in 2022, and expects to go even faster this year.
There are downsides to relying on a whimsical tycoon for vital infrastructure. Mr Musk has complained about the cost of subsidising Ukraine’s use of Starlink, which he says runs to $100m or so. He backed down after a backlash, but was surely correct. Charity is no way to run a war: no one expects Lockheed Martin to donate missiles. Better for America’s government to cover the cost, as it does with other military aid.
In October a row erupted with Ukraine’s government, when Mr Musk suggested a peace plan that involved Russia keeping hold of Crimea, which it invaded in 2014. Although relations have been mended (at least in public), SpaceX is still reluctant to let Ukraine use its system to launch attacks in occupied territory, or inside Russia itself.
But, generally speaking, the system has performed well. In 2022 SpaceX unveiled Starshield, a division aimed at adapting Starlink for government and military customers. (America’s armed forces had been experimenting with Starlink even before the invasion.) America’s friends and rivals have taken note, too. As with GPS, which proved so useful that many other countries decided they must have sovereign systems of their own, Europe, China and Russia are all racing to build their own mega-constellations. China and Russia are trying to come up with ways to attack or disrupt Starlink should the need arise. The race is on. For now, though, America, thanks to SpaceX, has a huge lead. ■
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "Internet from the sky"