Ukraine: Starlink allegedly slows down combat drones with a speed limit
The satellite internet provider Starlink, operated by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX, has reportedly started throttling the connections used by Ukrainian combat drones above a certain flight speed. This literally slows down the drones.
Ukrainian drones have to fly slower
SpaceX has apparently introduced a limit on certain Starlink services that makes military use of drones in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian war of aggression more difficult. The Ukrainian military reports that the navigation of the drones is hindered at flight speeds of over 160 km/h. Serhiy Beskrestnov, who works as an adviser to the Ukrainian president, said via a Telegram channel, according to the news agency Reuters that SpaceX has stopped operating the military version of Starlink for flying systems above speeds of more than 160 km / h. Ukraine was not previously informed of this step, which led to the interruption of a number of “missions,” Beskrestnov said, according to the report. As soon as Ukraine’s drones, connected to their pilots via Starlink, reached a flight speed of over 100 km/h, there were also connection failures lasting ten to 20 seconds, it said. The drones would then fly further, but would be more difficult to control.
SpaceX has not yet commented on the matter. Currently, however, there is said to be massive pressure from the US to stop the ongoing attacks with fast, long-range drones against the Russian oil industry. The background is the so-called “diesel deal” between the US government and Russia, under which the USA wants to purchase 300,000 tons of Russian diesel fuel. For a few days now, Ukraine has said it has no longer received advance warnings from its foreign partners when it comes to impending ballistic missile attacks from Russia.
Amit Gohar is Technical writer at ResearchSnipers.com, he is well versed Technology News writer, he has completed is MS computer Science in 2020. He can be reached at amit.g@researchsnipers.com
