SpaceX restricts Starlink use on Ukrainian military drones, disrupting missions

Filed 41m ago · Via NV · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Marty Gots a Plan

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: CBP Photography · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

SpaceX imposed new speed restrictions on Starlink terminals used by Ukrainian forces overnight on October 14, with officials saying the military-grade Starshield service now drops connection above 160 kilometers per hour while in motion.

Ukrainian activist Serhii Sternenko and presidential adviser Serhii Beskrestnov both reported the restriction disrupted several missions, with no advance warning given to Ukraine's military. Beskrestnov called the timing unlikely to be coincidental given the current political dispute between Kyiv and Washington.

The restrictions follow days of public friction: Trump telling Zelensky to negotiate and stop striking Russian refineries, and Musk writing that Zelensky had gone too far. Neither a request from the Trump administration nor any political motive behind SpaceX's move has been independently confirmed.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A company run by a man who just picked a public fight with a wartime president suddenly slows down that president's drones, and we're supposed to call it an engineering update. Maybe it is. But when the timing lines up this neatly, the burden of proof sits with the folks holding the switch, not the ones losing connection mid-mission. Silence from SpaceX isn't an answer, it's a choice.

Source: Read the original at NV → Scored: Marty Gots a Plan · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0