According to a photograph shared by Ukraine’s vice prime minister, who had asked CEO Elon Musk for help during Russia’s invasion, SpaceX dispatched a truckload of Starlink user terminals to the country. Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted at Musk over the weekend, requesting that he send Starlink stations to Ukraine. Musk responded by stating that the country’s satellite internet service had been activated and that more terminals were on the way. Today, it appears that Musk has kept his word, replying to Fedorov’s newest tweet with, “You are most welcome.”
As fighting in Ukrainian cities continues, there are fears that cyberattacks on crucial internet infrastructure may make it more difficult for news to exit the country and for people to contact loved ones. These concerns were heightened following a series of partial outages last week.
Image Source – Twitter
Consumers must have a user terminal, which is a white flat dish that SpaceX sells directly to clients, in order to connect to the Starlink system. The dishes can send and receive signals from any active Starlink satellites that are overhead if they have a clear view of the sky.
Although there is still a lot of equipment on the ground, much of the infrastructure that powers satellite internet is in space. Satellites must be able to communicate with gateways, which are fixed ground stations on Earth that are linked to existing fiber-optic cables, in order to provide internet access.
It’s unclear how the dishes will be used or distributed now that they’ve arrived in Ukraine, though one Twitter user claimed to be using the service in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. The antennas do require unobstructed access to the sky, which could be difficult in a warzone. Furthermore, the locations of SpaceX’s gateways are not explicitly public information, but internet sleuths on Reddit have discovered some, including one in Ukraine’s neighbor Poland.
