by Mercy Oriabure | Wed Mar, 2022 | Geoinfotech Blog, News, Satellite |
Starlink service is now active in Ukraine – Elon Musk, this reply comes after a tweet from Ukraine Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. Where he entreated the Tesla CEO to provide the country with Starlink access via a Twitter post on Saturday.
Expanding Starlink coverage to Ukraine might definitely be an easy part of building alternative internet infrastructure.
A network of relay towers and a constellation of low orbits satellites provides Starlink’s internet service. Offering the Ukrainian security advantage, unlike the regular land-based internet infrastructure.
As taking down satellites would be a costly operation for Russia. These relay towers that Starlink uses to provide Ukraine with internet coverage are likely stationed in neighboring countries, where Russian troops can’t target them.
Even with this tweet, ”Starlink service is now active in Ukraine” – Elon Musk, however, booting this service in Ukraine doesn’t automatically mean Ukrainians can use it.
Hence to complete the network, end users in Ukraine will need to import Starlink satellite dishes to receive signals from the service.
With Musk’s statement that “more terminals [are] en route” to Ukraine, it is however uncertain during the time of war, how those supplies will reach Ukraine’s government in Kyiv. SpaceX didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Fedorov didn’t say in his tweet why the Ukraine government wants to use the Starlink service. Ukraine has suffered multiple cyberattacks since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion on Feb. 24, but the country’s internet service remains generally active and stable.
Ukraine’s government has made ample use of web services, such as the Telegram messaging app, to keep citizens informed of its wartime efforts, and ministers evidently continue to be active on Twitter.
Regions affected most have experienced internet outages, and it’s possible Russian troops could target Ukraine’s internet infrastructure, such as transmitter towers, as the war continues.
In a second tweet, Fedorov thanked Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova for helping “swift decisions related to authorization and certification that allowed us to activate the Starlink in Ukraine”.
The tweet suggests Starlink wasn’t available before due to administrative roadblocks, rather than technical ones.
In view of Starlink’s website, the satellite internet service is expected to hit Ukraine in 2023, so the Twitter exchange between Fedorov and Musk appears to have hastened a rollout, already planned.
