Experts point to Starlink’s close connection with the America’s military
Experts have warned countries about the security risks associated with the Starlink satellite-based internet service given its close links with the US military.
American entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite-based internet service is set to enter India following New Delhi’s decision to assign spectrum based on an administrative decision rather than an auction. India’s decision came shortly after Starlink owner Elon Musk criticised the auction route proposed by Mukesh Ambani, owner of the rival Indian telecom company Reliance Jio.
Musk argued that it is international practice (as per International Telecommunication Union regulations) to award spectrum administratively rather than by auction. Reliance Jio’s Ambani argued in favour of an auction to ensure a level playing field. However, Indian Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia rejected Ambani’s plea.
He announced that the spectrum would be allocated administratively “as per Indian laws, and its pricing will be determined by the telecom watchdog.” Scindia added that deviating from this approach to conduct an auction would set India apart from the rest of the world.
Thus, Musk won hands down, and Ambani lost a huge market.
The Indian internet market is projected to grow at 36% annually, expected to reach US$ 1.9 billion by 2030. India now has 42 million wired broadband internet users and 904 million telecom users on networks like 4G and 5G. India is the world’s second-biggest telecom market after China.
However, internet penetration is still inadequate. Penetration stood at only 52.4% in 2024. There are still 25,000 villages without internet, and even in cities, many areas lack fibre-based fast internet connections. Therefore, it can be argued that satellite-based internet will significantly help cover the entire country.
Security Risks
Be that as it may, Indian nationalists are worried that India’s security may be compromised given Starlink’s close links with the American armed forces.
Telecommunication is a highly sensitive domain in India. The country has barred Chinese companies from entering this sector. Such is the sensitivity that a permit is required even to use a satellite phone. People, including a Kerala fisherman at sea and a foreign national, have been arrested for using satellite phones without permission.
Nationalists ask the following questions: “Would India be able to control Starlink if India-US relations deteriorate? Could Starlink cease its services on the orders of the US Government? Would Indian regulators be able to keep an eye on the use of the Starlink system and ensure it is not used for espionage or to tamper with vital Indian communications?”
India-US relations are at a low now. The US has accused Indian intelligence personnel of involvement in an attempt to murder a US citizen of Indian origin, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, in New York last year. The case is now in a New York court, and an Indian suspect is in US custody. In addition, India has differences with the US over Ukraine, Iran, Russia, the QUAD, and now Bangladesh as well. Relations could therefore deteriorate further.
Technical Threats
In his paper entitled “Cyber Threat Landscape Analysis for Starlink: Assessing Risks and Mitigation Strategies in the Global Satellite Internet Infrastructure,” Karwan Mustafa Kareem of the University of Sulaimani in Iraq outlines the technical dangers associated with Starlink. These include Denial-of-Service (DoS), Man-in-the-Middle (MitM), Jamming, Spoofing, and Physical Tampering.
Kareem emphasises the importance of encryption algorithms, authentication protocols, and intrusion detection systems in safeguarding satellite networks against unauthorised access and data breaches.
He highlights the need for continuous monitoring and threat intelligence sharing to effectively detect and respond to emerging threats. India has to make sure that it has all these safeguards in place.
India had asked Starlink about its shareholders to know if any country in the neighbourhood, with which it was at odds, was on the list. India was particularly worried about China and Pakistan, the latter believed to be in cahoots with China. Starlink replied that no such neighbouring entity is a shareholder.
Links with US Military
Starlink’s ties with the US military were outlined by Yan Jiajie and Yu Nanping in their paper in the Journal of International Security Studies dated 14 September 2024. (See: https://interpret.csis.org/translations/the-u-s-starlink-project-and-its-implications-from-the-perspective-of-international-and-national-security/).
Yan and Yu give an impressive list of projects that SpaceX and Starlink have with the US military. SpaceX is Starlink’s parent company.
In March 2019, the US Air Force’s Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation Office signed a US$28 million contract with SpaceX, requiring the company to conduct military service demonstration and verification using the Starlink constellation.
In November 2019, the US Air Force awarded SpaceX a contract called the Defence Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet (DEUCSI), which aims to explore the use of commercial low-orbit communication satellite constellations to build a globally resilient, highly available, high-bandwidth, low-latency communication infrastructure for the US Air Force in space to support various Air Force combat operations.
In May 2020, the US Army signed a three-year Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with SpaceX to test the feasibility of connecting the broadband network provided by Starlink’s low-orbit internet constellation to the military communication network.
On 14 March 2017, SpaceX won a US$96.5 million contract with the US Air Force to launch GPS-III, the next generation of Global Positioning System satellites. SpaceX is to provide launch vehicle production, mission integration, and rocket launching, as well as follow-up value assessment and original research work for GPS-III.
On 5 October 2020, the Department of Defence’s Space Development Agency (SDA) and SpaceX signed a US$149 million contract that includes the construction of four ballistic missile and hypersonic missile detection and tracking satellites.
In October 2020, it was announced that SpaceX would receive a US$149 million contract to build four military satellites for the “Tracking Layer Tranche 0” of the United States’ “Next Generation Space System,” which will be used to provide early warning and tracking information for defence against ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles.
SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 rocket carrying more than 20 tonnes of payload into Low Earth Orbit. The controlled recovery and soft landing of the first stage of the rocket, along with its reuse, was achieved, greatly reducing launch costs. SpaceX has also undertaken the development and launch of the Dragon spacecraft.
Taking Out Targets
Each Starlink satellite can transmit high-definition pictures and videos it takes over a war zone to front-line commanders. At the same time, the vast amount of data collected by UAVs over the battlefield will no longer need to be compressed locally; instead, it will be transmitted in raw form directly to a command centre on the other side of the earth via Starlink, where it will be analysed by supercomputers to extract useful data and analyse the battlefield situation more precisely. This capability will enable commanders in the war zone to make decisions more quickly and accurately.
On 3 January 2020, the US used an UAV to take out Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani. On 27 November of the same year, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, head of Iran’s nuclear programme and its chief nuclear scientist, was assassinated near Tehran.
These actions were made possible by the global high-speed communication and space-air coordination capabilities achieved via satellite networks.
If Starlink is used on a large scale in the military field in the future, it will further enhance the US military’s satellite communication and unmanned combat capabilities and pose a threat to the national security of rival states, Yan Jiajie and Yu Nanping concluded.
In addition, as analyst Zhou Yuzhe points out, the Starlink project intends to commandeer frequency and orbital resources. Since the International Telecommunication Union’s principle for obtaining orbits and spectrum is “first come, first served,” once Starlink has occupied a significant amount of orbital and spectrum resources, it will compress the available space for others.
Yan Jiajie and Yu Nanping maintain that the growing deployment of Starlink satellites in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) will give the company control over a large amount of data, challenging the security of other countries.