Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wants a forthcoming DoD contract renewal with SpaceX for Starlink in Ukraine to have provisions to help nix Russian black market-enabled use of the communications service.
“Can you assure me that, as you renegotiate this contract, you will have provisions in place that will require SpaceX to do everything within its ability to prevent illicit use by Russia and other forces?” Warren asked John Hill, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for space and missile defense, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee on May 21.
“Our contracts, in conjunction with the licenses that regulatory agencies provide–and DoD doesn’t control those–together, they ensure what you’re looking for,” Hill replied. “SpaceX complies with our contracts, and they comply with the licenses they have from regulatory agencies who can enforce those licenses.”
“I get it,” Warren said. “We’re in an unclassified setting here. The devil is always in the details. I taught contract law for many years. I would ask you to submit to the committee the conditions that give you confidence that SpaceX is bound contractually so that it will prevent illicit use of those [Starlink] terminals by Russia.”
“I just think it’s critically important that DoD hold its contractors accountable for any mismanagement or illegal acquisition of its hardware and services by bad actors, and we just wanna make sure that Russia’s not getting an advantage,” she said.
Warren asked Hill whether the Pentagon will be able to identify “illicit Russian use of Starlink services and completely shut them off,” and Hill replied, “I think this will be a continuous problem…I think we can continue to identify and turn them off, but Russia will not stop.”
Hill said that DoD and SpaceX have addressed Russian illegal use of Starlink, in part through the exchange of company proprietary and classified information between industry and DoD at the Space Force Combined Space Operations Center’s commercial integration cell at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.
“Broader, across the government, we can then develop strategies,” Hill said. “Is it better to identify all the terminals that should be left on, or should we identify terminals that should be turned off? Different types of approaches–we’ve done that with them [SpaceX].”
In a May 6 letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Warren wrote that “SpaceX appears to have monopoly power over satellite internet access and space payload delivery and passenger travel– a troubling national security problem.”
“DoD officials also appear to be throwing up their hands when it comes to reining in the national security threat posed by the sale and use of Starlink devices on the black market,” Warren wrote.
DoD-funded Starlink communications for Ukraine has come from an annual, $23 million Defense Information Services Agency (DISA) contract valid from last June 1 through May 31 this year (Defense Daily, April 9). DISA released the amount of that contract on March 22 after a Freedom of Information Act request from Defense Daily.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has attached an annual price tag of $400 million on what it costs to provide Starlink communications service to Ukraine, but SpaceX is unlikely to receive much more than the $23 million in a contract extension.