New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority was aware the flight from Christchurch pivoted following the agency’s issue of a Notice to Airmen, or NOTAM, to the aircraft, a CAA spokesperson told Military Times.

The Russian Air Traffic Management Corporation notified the CAA of the space activity, the spokesperson said, causing the authority to issue the NOTAM to the U.S. Air Force flight.

In a follow-up statement, the spokesperson said that the CAA was made aware by the Russian air traffic agency of a planned missile launch and associated potential hazard to international airspace within New Zealand’s Oceanic Flight Information Region.

“As a result, we put in place a danger area and issued a NOTAM to alert aircraft operators to the potential hazard,” the spokesperson said. “This does not prevent aircraft from flying through the area, operators make their decisions based on the information available.”

NOTAMs alert aircraft operators of potential hazards to allow them to make operational decisions around flight planning.

“Much of our Oceanic FIR is over international waters, where we have limited control over activities,” the spokesperson said, referring to the roughly 30 million square kilometers of international waters that spans across the South Pacific Ocean, Southern Ocean and Tasman Sea.

“It is normal practice for Airspace Authorities and Air Traffic Service Providers, provided with such hazard notifications to issue NOTAMs,” the spokesperson continued.

Flight-tracking data from Flightradar24 shows a U.S. Air Force C-17A Globemaster III took off from Christchurch International Airport, New Zealand, on Tuesday at 9 a.m. local time, with the call sign ICE28.

The site shows the aircraft landed around 11:30 a.m. back at Christchurch.

The flight was a routine resupply mission scheduled for this time of year, a U.S. Pacific Air Forces spokesperson told Military Times.

“Christchurch is the gateway to Antarctica,” the PACAF spokesperson said. “Both the United States Air Force and New Zealand Defense Force conduct operations and logistical support out of Christchurch in support of our Antarctic science programs.”

The turnaround happened during the U.S. Air Force’s annual Winter Fly-in period, or WinFly, which usually occurs toward the end of August and delivers teams, equipment and cargo to McMurdo Station and Scott Base, both in Antarctica, ahead of its research season.

The PACAF spokesperson declined to comment on whether this flight was in direct support of the WinFly, but a 2012 Air Force release details that a C-17 delivered over 300 passengers and 230,000 pounds of cargo that year to Antarctica.

“Using Christchurch International Airport, New Zealand as the base of operations, the mission of WinFly is to deliver advance teams and cargo to the remote research center in preparation for the main season of Operation Deep Freeze,” the release reads.

Operation Deep Freeze provides support to the U.S. Antarctic Program, managed by the National Science Foundation, that allows for continuous scientific research in the region.

Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster III is a cargo aircraft capable of fast delivery of troops and loads to main operating bases or forward bases in deployment areas. The aircraft can also complete tactical airlift and airdrop missions as well as aeromedical evacuations.

The U.S. payload rode a Japanese H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center. It is the second and final sensor in the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System-Hosted Payload program, the first national security space partnership of its kind between the United States and Japan, according to a recent release.

The new payload will deliver near-real-time data to the Space Surveillance Network, improving the U.S. Space Force’s understanding of activities within geosynchronous orbit above the Indo-Pacific. Geosynchronous orbit, about 22,000 miles up, is where a satellite matches Earth’s rotation and remains over the same spot.

Combat Forces Command’s Mission Delta 2 will operate the sensor to identify and track objects in orbit and help operators understand potential threats or opportunities.

The Japanese QZS-7, built by Mitsubishi Electric in Kamakura, Japan, is part of a constellation that primarily augments GPS signals over Japan and the surrounding region.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory designed and built both U.S. payloads for the program. Space Force and laboratory teams worked with Japanese partners for two years to integrate and test the second sensor with its host satellite.

“The successful launch of QZS-7 is a powerful testament to the enduring strength and rapid modernization of the U.S.-Japan alliance,” Col. Bryon McClain, Space Force portfolio acquisition executive for Space Combat Power, said in the release.

“By continuing to merge our capabilities in space modernization and satellite communications, we are maintaining security in a contested space domain and fortifying our shared deterrence capabilities across the Indo-Pacific region,” he continued.

Col. Gina Peterson, deputy commander of Mission Delta 2, said the program helps the Space Force meet threats from peer adversaries and build “resilient capabilities to detect, understand, and maintain custody of objects in deep space.”

The first sensor launched in February 2025 on QZS-6. Mission Delta 2 runs both payloads through the Multi-Mission Space Operations Center/Enterprise Command and Control-Schriever enclave in Colorado.

The U.S.-Japan partnership on this program began with a December 2020 agreement between the Space Force and Japan’s National Space Policy Secretariat.

Brig. Gen. Brian Denaro, commander of U.S. Space Forces Pacific, called the alliance one of the nation’s greatest strategic advantages in the Pacific and said the program demonstrates how the two countries enhance security across the region through collaboration from design through launch.

Destinus, MBDA, Safran, Airbus and Thales signed a letter of intent in Paris on Tuesday to set up the Bliksem EXO consortium, with the intention of entering a binding agreement within three months and starting joint engineering work in August, the companies said in a joint statement.

As Russia has stepped up ballistic missile output, Europe lacks its own system to intercept medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles mid-course, before re-entry vehicles enter the atmosphere. The continent currently relies on two United States-operated Aegis Ashore sites that use the SM-3 interceptor for exo-atmospheric defense, while Germany is buying Israel’s Arrow-3 system.

“Europe has strong lower-layer missile defenses, but it still lacks a sovereign European upper layer against medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles,” Destinus CEO Mikhail Kokorich said in the statement. “Bliksem EXO is designed to close that gap through direct hit-to-kill interception above the atmosphere.”

The letter of intent was signed at the inaugural meeting of an anti-ballistic coalition announced this week, with Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten present.

Bliksem EXO is intended to defeat ballistic threats, including systems in the class of Russia’s intermediate-range Oreshnik with separating and maneuvering re-entry vehicles, the companies said. The interceptor system will be designed to detect, track and defeat MRBM and IRBM threats though a kinetic hit-to-kill impact, without an explosive warhead.

Destinus will serve as the consortium lead, responsible for the system integration and the exo-atmospheric kill vehicle, the companies said. The Netherlands-based startup currently develops unmanned systems, including the Ruta Block 2 cruise missile, as well as turbojet engines.

MBDA Deutschland will handle the interceptor booster, launcher and canister; Safran Electronics & Defense will provide the kill vehicle seeker and guidance, navigation and control; Airbus Defence and Space will work on command-and-control and battle management; and Thales will be in charge of the radar and sensor chain, from early warning to fire control, according to the statement.

The new interceptor system will complement existing and planned European lower-layer defenses, rather than compete with them, as it will operate above terminal and theater-level systems as part of a layered European missile defense, the firms said.

The program will be designed for full interoperability with NATO’s integrated air and missile defense and strengthen the European Sky Shield Initiative “by addressing the currently missing upper layer,” according to the companies. Germany has previously proposed Arrow-3 as the exo-atmospheric component of ESSI.

System design, testing and evaluation will draw on Ukraine’s experience in countering massed air and missile attacks, the firms said.

“I’m really pleased to announce that eight allies are launching a project to explore the development of a mega-constellation called HALO, opening a new chapter in allied space operations,” said Radmila Šekerinska, the NATO deputy secretary-general.

HALO — Hybrid Alliance Layered Operations in Space — will focus on improving connectivity and integration of sovereign, nationally owned and controlled military satellites into a networked constellation.

Denmark, Canada, Finland, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Turkey are part of the effort. It aims to improve alliance resilience and military advantage in space, enabling high-speed communications, intelligence and missile tracking.

Individual satellite constellations run independently by member countries are vulnerable to cyberattacks, jamming or physical destruction, while also being too slow to relay large amounts of data, Šekerinska said.

“So this new model will be particularly helpful for high-speed communications, intelligence and missile tracking, overcoming the cost, the time and coverage limitations of single-nation satellite fleets,” she added.

Meanwhile, at the NATO Summit Defence Industry Forum, several nations declared their contributions to the space domain. Canada became the 15th member of NATO’s STARLIFT multinational initiative, which explores ways to develop a network of launch capabilities that will help allies launch assets on short notice from spaceports across the alliance.

Spain became the 19th country to join NATO’s Alliance Persistent Surveillance from Space initiative. Madrid will contribute by increasing coastal surveillance through imagery from its “Atlantic Constellation” satellites.

Turkey announced plans for the development of two additional high-resolution satellites to complement space capabilities in the region.

ICEYE is currently manufacturing satellites at a pace of 50 per year, Modrzewski said at the European Defence & Security Summit in the Belgian capital, and the goal is to ramp up production to two satellites a week as the company responds to surging demand from European militaries.

The CEO said future constellations will be “in the hundreds of satellites,” pointing to the example of Elon Musk’s Starlink with its thousands of satellites. He said ICEYE’s planned manufacturing line for 100 satellites a year “is still too small, so we will keep on growing that production.”

European governments are trying to reduce their dependency on the United States for a number of critical defense enablers, including satellite intelligence, and ICEYE has benefited from efforts to close the gap. The company has said the U.S. halt of intelligence sharing in March 2025 really drove home the need in Europe for sovereign access to space-based intel.

The ICEYE CEO said Germany’s order for a 40-satellite constellation in December was “the first-ever European move to actually create a properly large tactical system in Europe.”

The company was founded in 2014 by Modrzewski and Pekka Laurila as a Finnish university spin-off, and it supplies Earth-observation data using synthetic aperture radar, or SAR for short, which ICEYE initially intended as a tool to help ships avoid sea ice.

ICEYE took less than 12 months from contract signature to deliver full radar-satellite systems to Poland, Greece and Portugal, according to Modrzewski, calling that a big change in an industry where one satellite used to take five years.

“Here we are talking about three different countries, each of which has received a constellation of five, six, seven within less than 12 months,” the CEO said. “Those are off-the-shelf satellites, that’s how crazy it got right now. And it is what we need in order to be responsive to the threats that are outside of our borders.”

Modrzewski said the cost of an ICEYE system is ten times lower than that of legacy systems, allowing the likes of Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands to own not just satellites but entire constellations.

He said ICEYE has delivered a four-satellite system to the Polish Armed Forces, adding that the country is continuing to grow its constellation, “and soon they will have high tactical capability which is fully sovereign to Poland.” The Finnish company signed an agreement in May 2025 to provide Poland with three SAR satellites, with an option for three more.

Modrzewski has been pushing a proposal for a system of 1,000 satellites called Constellation Europe that would combine space-based ground observation, space situational awareness and in-space defense capabilities. He said access to space-based surveillance to “know, react or act” has been a common thread in recent conflicts, and a capability that Europe is still missing.

“The war in Ukraine and the war in the Middle East, they differ in many ways, but they actually are extremely similar in the fact that the tactical access to satellite intelligence has proven to be critical for both sides,” Modrzewski said.

With a growing number of countries such as India, Japan and Australia trying to move away from a purely U.S.-based supply chain, there is “a massive opportunity for our European defense sector” as long as European firms can show credibility in their home markets, according to Modrzewski.

He said Constellation Europe would be a way for the European space industry to show it produces “capabilities which are equal or better to our counterparts,” and is happy share those capabilities to contribute to a “bigger, safer world” of middle powers.

He said Europe was previously able to jointly procured a satellite-navigation system with Galileo, and now needs to do the same for Earth observation.

“if we really want to catch up to this massive gap that’s developing between us and the United States, when it comes to space, we’ve got to start moving fast and acting now,” the ICEYE CEO said.

ICEYE raised €450 million (US$510 million) in a Series F funding round earlier this month that valued the satellite company at more than €10 billion, with the firm saying it will use the proceeds to expand its global footprint.

While the latest funding round was led by a U.S. investment firm, Modrzewski said the majority of the ICEYE board is European, the company’s technology was developed in Europe and being a European firm “is critical.”

“Them choosing to put money into European company actually is a statement of the fact that they see something more unique over here,” Modrzewski said. “So I consider this a win.”

The astronaut will be part of a four-man crew that will tackle a host of difficult tests within Earth’s orbit in preparation for NASA’s 2028 Artemis IV flight, which will be the first crewed mission to the moon’s South Pole.

Rubio’s mission is slated to serve as a proving ground for future lunar landings, as the team will evaluate how the spacecraft navigates toward and docks with commercial landing systems developed by Blue Origin and SpaceX.

“My Army training has been an integral part of the experiences that have enabled me to be ready for this mission,” Rubio, a former Black Hawk pilot-turned-flight surgeon, said in a Tuesday statement released by the Army.

“Serving taught me to lead under pressure, how to stay calm when the stakes are highest, and how to put the mission and the people beside you above yourself,” he added.

Rubio’s selection as a mission specialist for Artemis III comes after a record-setting 371-day mission aboard the International Space Station from September 2022 to September 2023, where he set the American record for the longest single spaceflight. The unexpected yearlong mission saw Rubio complete 5,963 orbits around Earth, travel over 157 million miles and complete three spacewalks that amounted to 21 hours and 24 minutes in total.

His previous journey was only meant to last six months, but a spacecraft coolant leak prolonged the mission.

Before he began eschewing gravity in pursuit of outer space, Rubio served nearly 20 years as an aviator and then physician. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1998 and logged over flight 1,100 hours — more than 600 in combat during deployments to Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq — before beginning medical school and training as a family physician and flight surgeon.

At the time of Rubio’s NASA selection, he was a battalion surgeon for the 3rd Battalion of the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in Colorado.

Rubio is one of three Artemis III crew members with military backgrounds. Andre Douglas, who will serve as a mission specialist during the flight, graduated from the Coast Guard Academy before serving as a guardsman. Randy Bresnik, the crew’s commander, retired as a colonel in the Marine Corps.

Bob Hines, who was selected as backup crew member, is a colonel in the Air Force.

Nineteen Army astronauts have taken part in NASA’s space missions, but Rubio and Col. Anne McClain are the Army’s only active duty astronauts, according to the service. Chief Warrant Officer 3 Joseph Bailey, also on active duty, is an astronaut candidate and began his initial training in September 2025.

Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister, announced at a press conference in Berlin that Germany is developing a European Space Component Command alongside a Weltraumakademie − a multilateral space training academy − and insisted that partner nations will be “embedded in the design phase” rather than presented with finished structures.

The meeting, billed as the first “DACH+L” format, expanding the traditional German-Austrian-Swiss defense dialogue to include Luxembourg, served as a platform for Pistorius to demonstrate traction on Germany’s €35 billion ($40.7 billion) military space investment pledged last fall. That program spans encrypted low-earth-orbit satellite constellations, military-grade launch capacity, and an expanded Space Command within the Bundeswehr.

Austria’s Defense Minister Claudia Tanner reaffirmed that Austria plans to put three operationally designated military satellites plus a test object into orbit next year, developed partly with Austrian startups. The program centers on two projects: LEO2VLEO, a joint initiative with the Netherlands covering imaging and navigation in very low Earth orbit, and BEACONSAT, an Austrian navigation satellite built for under €1 million ($1.16 million). Tanner said the satellites would be made available to partners and framed the push as essential for communications independence in a crisis.

Austria is neutral by constitution, though some have questioned how its deepening defense ties with European neighbors can be squared with this tradition and legal requirement.

Luxembourg’s Defense Minister Yuriko Backes, attending a DACH meeting for the first time, pointed to her country’s niche: established SATcom and Earth observation expertise that Luxembourg is “very willing to make available to allies and partners.” She and Tanner both referenced a forthcoming cooperation deal between the two countries on satellite use in July, without elaborating.

Swiss Federal Councilor Martin Pfister noted that there is no domain where Europe faces a greater dependency on non-European technology providers than in the space domain. “It is not possible for one country to solve this alone,” he said, though he called out Swiss state-owned company Beyond Gravity as a potential industrial contributor to a European solution.

Switzerland, too, has bent the limits of its longstanding neutrality to deepen its integration into European defense projects since the war in Ukraine. The joint accession of both Austria and Switzerland to the German-led European Sky Shield Initiative in 2023 was a prime example of this new thinking.

The latest moves signal a further deepening of these Central European defense ties. The conference alone was a remarkable signal, expanding the more established German-Austrian-Swsiss DACH format to Luxembourg as a fourth member.

What Monday’s meeting produced in concrete terms was modest: a reaffirmation of existing cooperation threads, a cyber exercise result − Luxembourg, together with the three other German-speaking countries, placed second at NATO’s Locked Shields event under German leadership in April − and political momentum behind space initiatives that remain largely conceptual. But the message was still clear: German-speaking Europe is serious about wanting to become a player in space, and the push for independence from the U.S. has gained additional momentum.

The proposal, called Project Able Baker, would solve two problems, the Air Force said. First, the new Sea-Based Recovery Stations would offer a cheaper way of retrieving reusable heavy-lift rockets so they can be launched again. And, it would provide a new purpose and refurbishment for decommissioned oil platforms before they become environmental hazards.

“This approach aims to provide the U.S. Space Force and its commercial partners with a distributed network of recovery sites that enhance launch cadence, reduce sonic-boom exposure, and leverage existing maritime infrastructure to lower operational costs,” according to an Air Force solicitation posted through the Small Business Innovation Research program.

The Air Force sees these old oil platforms as an alternative to using ships to recover rockets — a method used by companies like SpaceX. One benefit would be “reducing dependence on expensive, custom-built drone ships and facilitating higher launch frequencies,” the solicitation says.

To accomplish this, old oil rigs must be strengthened to handle the “specific plume, vibration, and high-intensity point-load dynamics” of modern rockets, such as SpaceX’s Falcon 9, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn, the Air Force said. The rockets are capable of sending heavy equipment into orbit.

Other desired features of the offshore oil platforms include “passive/active flame deflection, remote fire suppression systems, and precision navigation aids for autonomous landing guidance.”

In addition, these platforms should have “integrated barge or Vertical Takeoff and Landing systems to move boosters from the landing pad to transit vessels.”

The first phase of the solicitation calls for companies to establish the technical and economic feasibility of the concept. The focus is on “structural load analysis, environmental impact assessment, and the development of a regulatory roadmap for operations in federal waters.”

Companies may also be asked to identify at least three offshore platforms that can handle heavy-lift rockets.

Part of the assessment process should include the impact of sonic booms on nearby shipping and coastal populations, as well as the impact on the local ecosystem, the Air Force said. The platforms must align with the federal government’s Rigs to Reefs initiative to turn decommissioned oil rigs into aquatic habitats.

The second phase would involve fabricating and installing “a modular reinforcement kit on a representative deck section of an offshore structure to validate construction techniques and material resilience,” said the SBIR. Testing would use “inert-mass drops (10—25 tons) or static-fire simulations —to capture high-fidelity strain, vibro-acoustic, and plume-interaction data.”

The Project Able Baker SBIR has an unusually detailed list of potential dual-use benefits for the government and commercial sectors.

With the number of space launches and orbital satellites soaring in recent years, the Air Force envisions a series of converted oil platforms that can ease the strain on land-based sites to speed up the entire launch and recovery process.

“By repurposing legacy offshore assets, the system provides a strategic alternative to traditional coastal launch-landing operations, significantly increasing launch cadence while reducing acoustic and debris risks,” the SBIR said.

It would also enable Tactically Responsive Space capabilities “in deep-sea or high-latitude environments, critical for responsive space access.”

China is already building offshore platforms to recover heavy rockets.

Perhaps anticipating scrutiny from environmentalists, the Air Force emphasizes that the Sea-Based Recovery Station concept is an “environmentally conscious solution.”

There are “hundreds of offshore oil and gas platforms in federally controlled waters are reaching the end of their operational lifecycle,” the Air Force said. “Traditional decommissioning and full-removal processes are capital-intensive, costing upwards of $1.6 billion per platform, and often cause significant disruption to established marine ecosystems.”

“The Space Force will require significant additional manpower and specialized expertise to generate Space Control forces able to conduct sustained operations at a global scale,” the plan says.

For example, the Space Domain Awareness mission “will demand additional analysts, operators, and engineering support with a projected growth of approximately 30% in personnel.”

The Space Force currently has around 15,000 military and civilian personnel.

The Space Force also anticipates operating — and tracking — many more satellites. The Future Operating Environment report released alongside the Objective Force plan predicts the number of satellites in orbit will more than quintuple from around 12,000 today to 60,000 in 2040.

The U.S. satellite fleet will grow from about 7,000 to 30,000, while China’s satellites will soar from 1,900 to 21,000. To keep up, the Space Force must rely on commercial space companies, the report says.

The “Spacelift and Launch Range Control Objective Force will implement the ‘Spaceport of the Future’ concept for distributed, resilient, and hybrid architecture that is commercially integrated by design,” the plan said. “Supplementing the federal spaceports, the Space Force will build a competitive marketplace in which every launch site and provider becomes a networked node in a robust, adaptive national space access enterprise.”

The Objective Force plan also suggests the Space Force develop a more sophisticated approach to offensive and defensive space warfare than merely weakening — and being weakened by — the enemy.

“By 2040, the Space Force will move beyond near-term attrition-based methods to a mature warfighting approach centered on campaigning, maneuver, and reconstitution that preserves strategic advantage without driving unnecessary escalation,” the plan states.

In turn, this will require integrated formations that combine orbital warfare, electromagnetic warfare and cyberspace warfare with the “intelligence, command and control, and battle management capacity required to fight in contested conditions.”

The Space Force will also to tackle new missions, especially assisting the kill chain with space-based sensing and targeting, as well as moving target indication to track air, ground and sea objects in real time.

“Historically, the Space Force’s Joint contribution for sensing was predominantly environmental monitoring” and providing weather data, the Objective Force plan noted.

“The SB-MTI mission will “require establishing a new Delta [mission set] along with dedicated Squadrons for the Air and Ground/Maritime capabilities. SB-MTI Guardians will need training in DAF [Air Force] and Joint fires operations, and Service Components will need to expand to support Combatant Command tasking and integration into battle management and intelligence.”

By 2035, the Space Force will be operating second- and third-generation SB-MTI systems. “Until then, the Space Force must prioritize adaptability and force presentation,” the Objective Force plan said. “For the first time, Guardians will operate MTI systems that directly enable lethal fires in all domains, and the Space Force must accomplish sufficient work to ensure their readiness and integration into the Joint Force.”

The Space Force also wants enhanced capabilities in other missions, including cyberwarfare, satellite communications, command and control, and position, navigation and timing. It foresees a future of kinetic and non-kinetic warfare where nations “convert dual-use platforms into weapons of opportunistic denial.”

Combatants will use methods such as “dense, self-healing webs of satellites, drifting high-altitude stratospheric relays, drones, and cyber agents that operate through, re-route, and overwhelm single points of failure.”

The Objective Force plan also grapples with one of the Space Force’s biggest challenges: How do you train for a type of warfare that has never before been waged in human history? Its answer is to call for big investments into simulators for various missions, such as training missile warning personnel to identify threats.

“No assessment is more definitive than combat experience,” the Space Force said. “In the absence of that, the Service is working to field live, virtual, and constructive training environments. Even so, a campaign of learning should assess whether or not this is sufficient and, more importantly, how to supplement and adapt those environments in response to new learning.”

A global outage across Elon Musk’s satellite network affecting millions of Starlink users had left two dozen unmanned surface vessels bobbing off the California coast, disrupting communications and halting operations for almost an hour.

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

As SpaceX rockets toward a $2 trillion public offering this summer – expected to be the largest ever – the company has secured its position as the world’s 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.

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.

But the Navy’s mishaps with Starlink for its autonomous drone program, which have not been previously reported, highlight the challenges of the U.S. military’s growing reliance on SpaceX and the risks it brings to the Pentagon.

“If there was no Starlink, the U.S. government wouldn’t have access to a global constellation of low earth orbit communications,” said Clayton Swope, a deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Pentagon did not respond to questions about the drone test or SpaceX’s work with the Navy. The Pentagon’s chief information officer, Kirsten Davies, said the “Department leverages multiple, robust, resilient systems for its broad network.”

The Navy and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.

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.

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.

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.

WARNINGS ABOUT RELYING ON SPACEX

Democratic lawmakers have warned the Pentagon about the risks of its reliance on a single company led by the world’s richest man to deliver crucial national security capabilities. More recently, the Defense Department’s 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.

Reuters reported last year that Musk unexpectedly switched off Starlink access to Ukrainian troops as they sought to retake territory from Russia, denting allies’ trust in the billionaire.

In Taiwan, SpaceX faced criticism over concerns it was withholding satellite communications to U.S. service members based there, “possibly in breach of SpaceX’s contractual obligations with the U.S. government,” 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.

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.

“As a matter of operational security, we do not comment on or discuss plans, operations capabilities or effects,” an official said in a statement.

STARLINK ‘EXPOSED LIMITATIONS’

SpaceX’s Starlink broadband has been crucial to the Pentagon’s 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.

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.

“Starlink reliance exposed limitations under multiple-vehicle load,” the report stated. The report also faulted issues linked to radios provided by Silvus and a network system provided by Viasat.

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.

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

“You accept those vulnerabilities because of the benefits you get from the ubiquity it provides,” he said.