SpaceX unveils Starshield, a army variation of Starlink satellites

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is increasing its Starlink satellite tv for pc know-how into army purposes with a brand new enterprise line known as Starshield.

Starshield is prone to additional faucet the corporate’s greatest U.S. authorities buyer – the Pentagon – which already represents a high-value purchaser of SpaceX’s launches and has proven vital curiosity within the capabilities of Starlink.

“Whereas Starlink is designed for shopper and industrial use, Starshield is designed for presidency use,” the corporate wrote on its web site.

Few particulars can be found in regards to the supposed scope and capabilities of Starshield. The corporate hasn’t beforehand introduced exams or work on Starshield know-how.

On its web site, SpaceX mentioned the system may have “an preliminary focus” on three areas: Imagery, communications and “hosted payloads” – the third of which successfully provides authorities clients the corporate’s satellite tv for pc bus (the physique of the spacecraft) as a versatile platform.

The corporate additionally markets Starshield as the middle of an “end-to-end” providing for nationwide safety: SpaceX would construct every part from the bottom antennas to the satellites, launch the latter with its rockets, and function the community in house.

SpaceX notes that Starshield makes use of “extra high-assurance cryptographic functionality to host categorized payloads and course of knowledge securely,” constructing upon the info encryption it makes use of with its Starlink system.

One other key characteristic: the “inter-satellite laser communications” hyperlinks, which the corporate at the moment has connecting its Starlink spacecraft. It notes that the terminals will be added to “accomplice satellites,” in order to attach different corporations’ authorities techniques “into the Starshield community.”