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by Micah Maidenberg
February 20, 2024
from
WSJ Website
and from
MSN and
WayBackMachine Website
© Provided by The Wall Street Journal
SpaceX is deepening its ties with U.S. intelligence and military
agencies, winning at least one major classified contract and
expanding a secretive company satellite program called
Starshield
for national-security customers.
The Elon Musk-led company entered into a $1.8 billion classified
contract with the U.S. government in 2021, according to company
documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
SpaceX said in the
documents that funds from the contract were expected to become an
important part of its revenue mix in the coming years. It didn't
disclose the name of the government customer.
The size and secrecy of the agreement illustrate a growing
interdependence between SpaceX - a dominant force in the space
industry - and the national-security establishment.
SpaceX's work for U.S. defense clients has long included blasting
off classified and military satellites.
The Pentagon has more
recently done business with SpaceX's Starlink broadband service,
including agreements to pay for Ukrainian internet links during
Ukraine's war with Russia.
Less is known about SpaceX's Starshield unit, which is tailored for
government clients and counts a former Air Force general among its
leaders.
Starshield won a $70 million award from the military last
August to provide communications services to dozens of Pentagon
partners.
However, the group has largely operated out of
the public eye.
"When I'm never sure what I can say in a public forum, I tend to zip
it.
But I can say that there is very good collaboration between the
intelligence community and SpaceX," Gwynne Shotwell, the company's
president, said at an event last May.
Provided by
The Wall Street Journal
On a webpage made public in late 2022, SpaceX described Starshield
as providing satellites capable of handling secure communications,
capturing data about Earth or carrying sensors or other observation
instruments for the government while in orbit.
Starshield's online job postings have sought people with top-secret
clearances, as well as experience working with the Defense
Department and intelligence community.
Is Musk the blue-eyed boy of the White House?
One advertised position would require the person handling it to
represent Starshield to Pentagon combatant commands - divisions that
oversee military operations around the world or specific functions,
such as transportation and cybersecurity.
A SpaceX spokesman didn't respond to requests for comment.
SpaceX has worked with national-security organizations since it was
a startup. Shortly after Musk founded the company in 2002, it won a
launch contract with an undisclosed U.S. intelligence customer, the
Journal reported almost two decades ago.
Later, SpaceX began
handling regular launches for military and spy agencies.
The company has also won significant national-security clients for
its satellite technologies - a different set of offerings from
SpaceX's traditional work blasting off satellites for those
customers.
One such client has been the National Reconnaissance
Office, according to people familiar with the matter.
Based in a sprawling office park south of Dulles International
Airport, the NRO draws staff from different Pentagon branches and
the Central Intelligence Agency, who use satellite data to support
national-security and civilian agencies in the federal government.
Its existence was a classified government secret until 1992.
It couldn't be determined what satellite technology from SpaceX the
NRO has tapped.
An NRO spokesman said the agency develops intelligence products with
a range of partners.
"We are deepening our relationships with other
government agencies, the private sector, academia and other
nations," the spokesman said.
Musk, who also leads Tesla, the social-media company X and other
ventures, comes from a Silicon Valley background that sets him apart
from the leaders of most prime military contractors.
The Journal has reported that Musk, who has a security clearance,
has used illegal drugs.
Government contractors can lose security
clearances because of drug abuse, defined as the use of illegal
drugs or prescription medications,
"in a manner that deviates from
approved medical direction."
Musk has said he hasn't failed drug
tests, and his attorney has said the executive has never failed a
test.
SpaceX's Shotwell has played a significant role in building the
company's relationship with national-security agencies, people
familiar with those efforts say.
SpaceX executives have touted the company's capabilities to
government buyers, pointing to its ability to rapidly manufacture
satellites and, deploying its partially reusable rockets, launch
them to low-Earth orbit at a cadence rivals can't match.
Leaders at
agencies that work closely with SpaceX have praised the company's
technology as sophisticated and its style as nimble.
Provided by
The Wall Street Journal
Terrence O'Shaughnessy, who joined SpaceX after retiring in 2020
from the Air Force as a general, has had a high-level role at
Starshield, people familiar with the matter said.
A biography posted
on a trade group's website described him as a,
"Senior Advisor to Elon Musk on matters regarding SpaceX" as well as vice president of
the company's Special Programs Group.
He and others have urged the defense establishment to learn from the
example set by more agile space startups.
Last year, O'Shaughnessy
compared how SpaceX developed Starlink with a government effort to
create a similar but far smaller fleet.
The latter,
"sounds a lot
like Starlink," he said at a conference. "Yet they're looking for a
couple hundred satellites on orbit."
Roughly a decade after Musk said SpaceX would develop a
satellite-internet business to sell high-speed internet links to
consumers and businesses, the company operates the world's biggest
fleet, with about 5,400 satellites in operation as of mid-February.
Those devices power Starlink, which is marketed for civilian use.
SpaceX's growing importance to the U.S. government comes as space
increasingly becomes a contested arena that mirrors geopolitical
rivalries on Earth.
China has been ramping up its space
capabilities.
Russia has ambitions to develop a space-based nuclear
weapon that could be used to target satellites, U.S. officials said
this month.
Satellites play a major role in U.S. national security, tracking
missile launches and providing secure communications.
Others monitor
activity on the ground using cameras or sensors.
Some Pentagon space leaders want to move away from ordering powerful
but large satellites that might take a decade to build and launch.
In their place, they say, they want contractors to quickly launch
satellite swarms that can stay online when other systems fail.
Officials are planning for an aggressive pace of military and spy
satellite launches in the years ahead.
"I think speed in space acquisition is a very simple formula: You
build small, you use existing technology and reduce nonrecurring
engineering," Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary at the Air Force
for space acquisition and integration, said in a speech at the end
of 2022.
"You take advantage of commercial capabilities."
SpaceX's ability to quickly build and launch satellites has been on
display during Ukraine's fight against Russia.
Since the war's
earliest days, the company's Starlink satellite network has
supported communications for Ukrainian civil society and troops.
The service has also generated tensions. SpaceX's Shotwell last year
said the company took steps to limit Ukrainian troops from using it
for direct military engagements.
This month, Ukraine's top
military-intelligence officer said Russian invasion forces are using
thousands of Starlink terminals in occupied Ukrainian territory to
access internet services.
Musk has said no Starlink terminals, to the best of SpaceX's
knowledge, have been sold directly or indirectly to Russia.
Starlink
has said SpaceX takes steps to deactivate terminals if the company
determines sanctioned or unauthorized parties are using them.
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