Ukraine war opened door to Starlink: SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell has said that SpaceX was already close to offering internet service in Ukraine, but Russia’s invasion accelerated the process. Shotwell revealed this at the Satellite 2022 conference in Washington as reported by Bloomberg. “We were close to getting the approvals to offer service but the documents weren’t all signed,” Gwynne Shotwell said .

Russia's invading army destroyed much of Ukraine’s infrastructure and SpaceX’s Starlink service was one of the options Ukraine’s government sought. SpaceX activated the Starlink service on Feb. 26, the same day Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov implored SpaceX founder Elon Musk on Twitter to send Starlink terminals to help provide Internet service after Russia’s invasion two days earlier.

SpaceX's Starlink too uses low earth orbit satellites to provide internet access to regions that are underserved or hard to reach for other service providers

France and Poland are helping to fund Starlink terminal shipments to Ukraine, Shotwell told the New York Times. The company has “thousands” of terminals in Ukraine, a CNBC reporter tweeted, quoting Shotwell.

SpaceX is also helping to deploy a rival satellite constellation from OneWeb after that company was forced to end its relationship with Russia’s space agency, losing its access to the Soyuz launch vehicle. OneWeb said Monday its next launch would be on a SpaceX rocket later this year.

The British firm expects its first launch with SpaceX this year to add to its in-orbit constellation of 428 satellites.

"With these launch plans in place, we’re on track to finish building out our full fleet of satellites," OneWeb Chief Executive Officer Neil Masterson said.