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U.S. company SpaceX has “taken steps” to ensure that the Ukrainian military cannot use Starlink’s satellite internet to control drones, as the service was “never intended to be used as a weapon,” SpaceX President and COO Gwynn Shotwell said at a news conference for reporters.
According to Reuters, Shotwell stressed that under a contract with the government of Ukraine, the Internet is intended “to fulfill humanitarian purposes – providing broadband Internet to hospitals, banks and Ukrainians affected by hostilities,” and its use to control drones “is beyond the scope of the agreement.”
“We know that the military uses them for communication, and this is normal. <…> But it was never our intention for them to use it offensively,” Shotwell said.
Asked if the recent Starlink outage in Ukraine was related to the company’s efforts to prevent the service from being used by drones, she said she was “not sure I know the answer” and therefore did not want to answer. At the same time, she said that when sending the equipment to the war zone, the company did not assume that it would be used to control drones.
Recall that SpaceX delivered Starlink terminals to Ukraine after the start of the Russian military operation. The country uses a network of nearly 4,000 satellites launched by the company into low earth orbit.
Source: Rosbalt
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