‘SpaceX can no longer pay for satellite connection that Ukraine uses’
SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company, will no longer be able to fund the Starlink satellites donated to Ukraine in the spring. That CNN reports Thursday based on a letter Musk sent to the Pentagon last month. In it, he asks the US military to take over the financing of the satellites.
“We are not in a position to continue to donate the satellites to Ukraine, or to fund the existing terminals indefinitely,” SpaceX wrote to the Pentagon in the letter. According to SpaceX, the cost of the satellites for the rest of the year is about $120 million. This amount would increase to nearly $400 million over the next twelve months.
About 20,000 Starlink satellites have been donated to Ukraine so far. They are an essential communications source for the Ukrainian military ensuring that communications remain possible even as cell phone and internet networks have been destroyed in its war with Russia.
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