The US military, represented by the commander of the Space Forces James Dickinson, is concerned that the situation with the restriction of the use of Starlink for military needs in Ukraine may be repeated in the US army. The need to prevent this was discussed at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The US military is concerned
The US military is concerned about a situation where commercial suppliers may restrict the military use of satellites, as happened in the case of Starlink and the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The discussion of whether this could happen to the US military also arose during a meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The question was asked by Senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly. He questioned the actions of SpaceX, which actually crossed out the successful use of Starlink in Ukraine over the past year. He asked how this situation was consistent with the plans of the US military to rely more on commercial satellite service providers.
The respondent was the head of the US Space Command, General James Dickinson. He replied that the experience of the war in Ukraine showed how powerful commercial satellite technologies were. But the current situation has shown that this is possible only in the case of a joint vision by all parties of how certain services will be used.
Simply put, to insure themselves against a repeat of the situation with Starlink, the US military plans to discuss in advance with commercial suppliers what exactly the services they offer will be used for.
Starlink Act Evaluations
The root cause of all these conversations was the statement of SpaceX Vice President Gwynne Shotwell. Last month, she reported that the company was outraged by the militarization of their services by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In fact, we are talking about the impossibility of using Starlink to control long-range drones.
Senator Kelly described his attitude to this statement as disappointment. And this situation really casts doubt on the possible expansion of the use of commercial satellites by the US military, which is now considered as a key element of the modernization of the space defense system.
Dickinson, in response to all these comments, notes that all this is taken into account in the new Commercial Augmentation Space Reserves program, which the agency has prepared for interaction with commercial suppliers.
According to spacenews.com
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