{"id":589137,"date":"2026-04-17T05:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T05:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/589137\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T05:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T05:11:12","slug":"starlink-outage-hit-drone-tests-exposing-pentagons-growing-reliance-on-spacex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/589137\/","title":{"rendered":"Starlink outage hit drone tests, exposing Pentagon\u2019s growing reliance on SpaceX"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last August, U.S. Navy<\/a> officials carrying out a test of unmanned<\/a> vessels realized they had hit a single point of failure: Starlink. <\/p>\n

A global outage across Elon Musk\u2019s satellite network<\/a> affecting millions of Starlink users had left two dozen unmanned surface vessels<\/a> bobbing off the California coast, disrupting communications and halting operations for almost an hour.<\/p>\n

The incident, which involved drones<\/a> intended to bolster U.S. military options in a conflict with China, was one of several Navy test disruptions linked to SpaceX\u2019s Starlink that left operators unable to connect with autonomous<\/a> boats, according to internal Navy documents reviewed by Reuters and a person familiar with the matter. <\/p>\n

As SpaceX rockets toward a $2 trillion public offering this summer \u2013 expected to be the largest ever \u2013 the company has secured its position as the world\u2019s most valuable space company in part by being indispensable to the U.S. government with an array of technologies spanning satellite communications to space launches and military AI. <\/p>\n

Starlink, in particular, has proved key to crucial programs – from drones to missile tracking – with a low-earth orbit constellation of close to 10,000 satellites, a scale that provides the military with a network resilient against potential adversary attacks. <\/p>\n

But the Navy\u2019s mishaps with Starlink for its autonomous drone program, which have not been previously reported, highlight the challenges of the U.S. military\u2019s growing reliance on SpaceX and the risks it brings to the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there was no Starlink, the U.S. government wouldn\u2019t have access to a global constellation of low earth orbit communications,\u201d said Clayton Swope, a deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. <\/p>\n

The Pentagon did not respond to questions about the drone test or SpaceX\u2019s work with the Navy. The Pentagon\u2019s chief information officer, Kirsten Davies, said the \u201cDepartment leverages multiple, robust, resilient systems for its broad network.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Navy and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

\"\"Elon Musk at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, New Jersey, March 22, 2025. (Brendan Smialowski\/AFP via Getty Images) <\/p>\n

Despite facing growing competition from Amazon.com, which announced an $11.6 billion agreement this week to acquire satellite maker Globalstar, SpaceX remains far ahead in low-earth orbit communications.<\/p>\n

Beyond drones, SpaceX has cemented a near-monopoly for space launches and provides satellite communications with Starlink and its national security-focused constellation, Starshield, generating billions of dollars for the company. <\/p>\n

Last month, U.S. Space Force said it had reassigned its upcoming GPS launch to a SpaceX rocket for the fourth time, due to a glitch in the Vulcan rocket made by the Boeing and Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance.<\/p>\n

WARNINGS ABOUT RELYING ON SPACEX <\/p>\n

Democratic lawmakers have warned the Pentagon about the risks of its reliance on a single company led by the world\u2019s richest man to deliver crucial national security capabilities. More recently, the Defense Department\u2019s disagreements and blacklisting of AI startup Anthropic quickly revealed how an over-reliance on one AI vendor could create problems should that vendor be dropped. <\/p>\n

Reuters reported last year that Musk unexpectedly switched off Starlink access to Ukrainian troops as they sought to retake territory from Russia, denting allies\u2019 trust in the billionaire. <\/p>\n

In Taiwan, SpaceX faced criticism over concerns it was withholding satellite communications to U.S. service members based there, \u201cpossibly in breach of SpaceX\u2019s contractual obligations with the U.S. government,\u201d according to a 2024 letter sent by then-U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher to Musk, reported by Forbes at the time. SpaceX disputed the claim in a post on X.<\/p>\n

Reuters could not determine whether SpaceX has since provided Starlink service in Taiwan to U.S. service members. The Pentagon and SpaceX did not respond to questions about Taiwan. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs a matter of operational security, we do not comment on or discuss plans, operations capabilities or effects,\u201d an official said in a statement. <\/p>\n

STARLINK \u2018EXPOSED LIMITATIONS\u2019<\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s Starlink broadband has been crucial to the Pentagon\u2019s drone program, providing connection to small unmanned maritime vessels that look like speedboats without seats, and include those made by Maryland-based BlackSea and Austin, Texas-based Saronic.<\/p>\n

In April 2025, during a series of Navy tests in California involving unmanned boats and flying drones, officials reported that Starlink struggled to provide a solid network connection due to the high data usage needed to control multiple systems, according to a Navy safety report of the tests reviewed by Reuters. <\/p>\n

\u201cStarlink reliance exposed limitations under multiple-vehicle load,\u201d the report stated. The report also faulted issues linked to radios provided by Silvus and a network system provided by Viasat.<\/p>\n

In the weeks leading up to the global Starlink outage in August, another series of Navy tests was disrupted by intermittent connection issues with the Starlink network, Navy documents reviewed by Reuters show. The causes of the network losses were not immediately clear. <\/p>\n

Despite the setbacks, the upside of Starlink \u2013 a cheap and commercially available service \u2013 outweighs the risk of a potential outage disrupting future military operations, said Bryan Clark, an autonomous warfare expert at the Hudson Institute. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou accept those vulnerabilities because of the benefits you get from the ubiquity it provides,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last August, U.S. Navy officials carrying out a test of unmanned vessels realized they had hit a single…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[4426,26711,4425,4424,167928,29908,4427,29909,4423,16777,11,186264,29910,79,193,1513,5408,257394,257393,30547],"class_list":{"0":"post-589137","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-circulated-air-force-times","9":"tag-circulated-army-times","10":"tag-circulated-c4isrnet","11":"tag-circulated-defense-news","12":"tag-circulated-federal-times","13":"tag-circulated-marine-corps-times","14":"tag-circulated-military-times","15":"tag-circulated-navy-times","16":"tag-dn-dnr","17":"tag-drones","18":"tag-elon-musk","19":"tag-military-news","20":"tag-military-times","21":"tag-science","22":"tag-space","23":"tag-spacex","24":"tag-starlink","25":"tag-unmanned","26":"tag-unmanned-surface-vessels","27":"tag-us-navy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}