Elon Musk’s SpaceX is deepening its multi-billion-dollar ties with U.S. intelligence and military agencies, and is working on a top-secret satellite program called Starshield, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The space rocket company signed a $1.8 billion classified contract with the U.S. government in 2021 and expects funds from the contract to be important to its revenue mix, according to company documents viewed by the Journal.
SpaceX’s work for U.S. defense and national security customers has long included launching classified and military satellites. More recently, the Pentagon paid SpaceX for its Starlink broadband service for Ukrainian soldiers in their war against Russia.
In August, Starshield won a $70 million contract to provide communications services to dozens of unnamed Pentagon partners.
“When I’ve never sure what I can say in a public forum, I tend to zip it,” said SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell at an event last May. “But I can say that there is very good collaboration between the intelligence community and SpaceX.”
A SpaceX public webpage in 2022 described Starshield satellites as capable of handling secure communications, capturing data about Earth, and carrying government sensors and observation instruments into orbit. Job postings have sought people with top-secret clearance, experience in the Defense Department or intelligence, and work with Pentagon combatant commands.
Intelligence insiders say Shotwell has been instrumental in building SpaceX’s relationships with U.S. national security agencies.
“We are deepening our relationships with other government agencies, the private sector, academia and other nations,” said a spokesperson for the National Reconnaissance Office.
One of SpaceX’s strengths is Musk’s technology background, unique among leaders of the majority of military contractors.
Military insiders also praise the company, now in its 22nd year, for deploying sophisticated, partially reusable rockets into low-Earth orbit, and its ability to rapidly manufacture satellites. The U.S. wants to move away from large satellites that take a decade to build and launch, to quickly made satellite swarms. As of mid-February, SpaceX was operating a fleet of 5,400 satellites.
“I think speed in space acquisition is a very simple formula: You build small, you use existing technology, and reduce nonrecurring engineering,” said Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary at the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, in a 2022 speech. “You take advantage of commercial capabilities.”
SpaceX has also been ramping up its space capabilities at a time when the space race is heating up with major U.S. rivals, including Russia and China.
Russia is developing a space-based nuclear weapon to target satellites, U.S. officials said this month.
SpaceX’s Falcon rocket blasted off on Feb. 15 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center — taking Intuitive Machines’ lunar lander and experimental equipment from NASA — on its way to the moon, 230,000 miles away.
NASA, the main sponsor of the launch, with experiments, is hoping for a successful moon landing on Feb. 22.
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