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30 August 2024

Reliant on Starlink, Army eager for more SATCOM constellation options

Courtney Albon

The Army is leaning heavily on SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network for advanced command and control, but service officials say they want to keep their options open as new commercial megaconstellations materialize.

Mark Kitz, the Army’s program executive officer for tactical command, control and communications, said Wednesday that the importance of proliferated low Earth orbit satellite networks was on display at the service’s most recent Project Convergence Capstone event, where the Army experiments with multi-domain connectivity concepts.

“I don’t think you could take 10 steps without tripping over a Starshield terminal,” Kitz said at AFCEA’s TechNet conference in Augusta, Georgia. “I would say the Army is very committed to pLEO and Starshield.”

Starshield is SpaceX’s military business unit, which provides access to the company’s Starlink constellation, a fleet of more than 6,000 satellites in LEO, about 1,200 miles above Earth’s surface. The growing network of spacecraft provides internet service for private consumers as well as militaries around the world.


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