'Good News': SpaceX's Starlink Service Clears US Military Tests

"This is good news," said a former Pentagon deputy assistant secretary.

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service has successfully cleared at least nine months of US military testing in the Arctic, marking a significant milestone as the Arctic is becoming an increasingly important area of competition between the US, Russia, and China.

The exercises, which ended in June, found the SpaceX satellite internet service to be a “reliable and high-performance communications system in the Arctic, including on-the-move applications,” said Brian Beal, a principal engineer with the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Integrated Capabilities Directorate.

The tests essentially evaluated how useful billionaire Elon Musk’s product is to the US Defense Department, Beal noted.

“We tested in some very high winds and very cold temperatures,” Beal said. “That all went smoothly though. Once we got the terminals mounted securely to withstand high winds, they worked great with no issues.”

Beal adds that the Air Force is also evaluating the London-based Eutelsat OneWeb, which has a few months of Arctic testing left.

“This is good news,” said Leonor Tomero, a vice president at JA Green and a former Pentagon deputy assistant secretary. “We need faster and additional communication layers to strengthen strategic deterrence.”

After the “good news” comes a possible military deal for Musk, whose company has 233 satellites in polar orbit, with more than 5,000 Starlink satellites overall.

Already, SpaceX has business dealings with the Pentagon that include the ongoing competitive National Security Space Launch contracts, launch services and satellites for the US Space Development Agency and a $70 million one-year Space Force “task order,” as well as continued contracts to provide Starlink satellite communications to Ukraine.

The latest comes as Musk has been increasingly seen as a controversial figure. The 52-year-old first bought Twitter (which he renamed as X) in April 2022, a deal that was concluded months later in October. Musk was recently criticized for publicly endorsing an antisemitic tweet on the platform, which he later followed up by openly remarking during an event that major businesses, such as Disney, could go and “f***” themselves after they pulled their advertisements from X.

The billionaire also traveled to Israel last week to discuss “rising antisemtisim” online - which he claimed was not part of an "apology tour" in light of his remarks, as well as operating Starlink satellite internet in Gaza.