Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has been awarded its first contract from the U.S. Space Force: to provide satellite communications to the military through the company’s new Starshield program.
SpaceX (whose full name is Space Exploration Technologies Corp.) was awarded the one-year contract on Sept. 1, according to an Air Force spokeswoman. It has a $70 million ceiling and “provides for Starshield end-to-end service via the Starlink constellation, user terminals, ancillary equipment, network management and other related services.” By Sept. 30, about $15 million will be allocated to SpaceX, according to Bloomberg.
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On Wednesday, Musk took to his social media platform X to discuss the context around contract. “Starlink needs to be a civilian network, not a participant to combat. Starshield will be owned by the US government and controlled by DoD Space Force,” he wrote. “This is the right order of things.”
Starlink needs to be a civilian network, not a participant to combat.
Starshield will be owned by the US government and controlled by DoD Space Force.
This is the right order of things.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 27, 2023
The contract “is for a service” but how SpaceX provides that service is up to them, a Space Force spokesperson told Bloomberg. This goes for the other 50-or-so companies working across the military’s branches that were included in the same spending package.
The U.S. Space Force, created on Dec. 20, 2019 when it was signed into law by former President Donald Trump, aims to establish American “superiority in the space domain” and engage in “strategic competitors in space” in the name of national security imperative. It is considered an independent branch of the U.S. military.
In other news, it was revealed by Walter Isaacson’s new biography that Musk had considered building a new Tesla factory in Dallas. But in the end, he decided Dallas was “too Texas,” and opted for Austin instead. According to the book, Musk also rejected Chicago and New York, decided they were entirely unsuited to Tesla’s vision.
Musk also felt that California’s cities had a host of problems, such as tight regulations and bad COVID policies, and desperately wanted to get away from possible presidential contender Gavin Newsom’s state.
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