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Rich TVX Breaking News: Pentagon is considering paying for Starlink in Ukraine

NEW YORK (RichTVX.com) — According to sources in the United States Intelligence Community, Pentagon is considering paying for Starlink in Ukraine. Starlink satellite services in Ukraine refers to the SpaceX‘s Starlink internet access service being provided to Ukraine’s market. This service have been intertwined with the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, with Starlink providing critical communication lifeline to Ukraine’s governments and civilians despite persistent Russian bombing of traditional telecommunication infrastructures across Ukraine. The service had a pivotal role in the battle of Mariupol (2022), allowing besieged and resisting Ukrainian forces to keep reporting to the world on relentless Russian bombing and starving conditions.^[1][2] Starlink now serves as a vital communication line in war torn Ukraine, complementing precarious traditional telecommunication infrastructures. As of September 2022, there were 23,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine.^[3]

Starlink

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation operated by SpaceX,^[3] providing satellite Internet access coverage to 40 countries. It also aims for global mobile phone service after 2023.^[4] SpaceX started launching Starlink satellites in 2019. As of September 2022, Starlink consists of over 3,000 mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO),^[5] which communicate with designated ground transceivers. In total, nearly 12,000 satellites are planned to be deployed, with a possible later extension to 42,000. Starlink provides internet access to over 500,000 subscribers as of June 2022.^[6]

The SpaceX satellite development facility in Redmond, Washington houses the Starlink research, development, manufacturing, and orbit control teams. The cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation was estimated by SpaceX in May 2018 to be at least US$10 billion.^[7] SpaceX expects more than $30 billion in revenue by 2025 from its satellite constellation, while revenues from its launch business were expected to reach $5 billion in the same year.^[8][9]

Astronomers have raised concerns about the constellations’ effect on ground-based astronomy and how the satellites will add to an already congested orbital environment.^[10][11] SpaceX has attempted to mitigate astronomy concerns by implementing several upgrades to Starlink satellites aimed at reducing their brightness during operation.^[12] The satellites are equipped with krypton-fueled Hall thrusters which allow them to de-orbit at the end of their life. Additionally, the satellites are designed to autonomously avoid collisions based on uplinked tracking data.^[13]