MoD’s SpaceX spend shows limits of UK’s sovereignty ambitions

More money for Musk while domestic system hit by delays

The UK Ministry of Defence has spent almost £29.5 million on SpaceX satellite services since it started using it in 2022, including £13 million on the Starshield defence system, and £16.5 million on Starlink satellite communications.

That’s according to reporting by Reuters, following a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to the defence ministry.

The MoD began using Starlink at the start of the Ukraine war, and has increasing moved services onto Starshield, after SpaceX insisted in December 2022 that Starlink is for consumer and commercial use with Starshield reserved for national security customers. Starshield provides enhanced capabilities, priority access and military grade encryption.

This makes the UK the first country outside of the US to acknowledge that it is using SpaceX’s services for military purposes. Ukraine has reportedly used Starlink extensively for communications and drone operations and there are unconfirmed reports that it has access to upgraded Starshield terminals. The New Zealand government has confirmed it is testing Starshield for military purposes.

Military and intelligence use of SpaceX by other “Five Eyes” countries is suspected but not confirmed.

The MoD’s confirmation of its contracts comes at an awkward time for the UK, which has repeatedly raised concerns about dependence on dominant overseas technology providers, particularly US and Chinese firms. MPs have argued that Britain needs greater sovereign capability in AI, cloud and digital infrastructure and the government is working to boost domestic defence contractors.

To make things worse, SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, has been openly critical of the UK government under Kier Starmer, and there are obvious risks in handing key capabilities to a US private company including dependency on a single supplier, political leverage and loss of domestic expertise.

However, there are currently few obvious alternatives to SpaceX.

The small number of potential alternatives to SpaceX include Eutelsat OneWeb, in which the UK has a minority stake and which already provides government and military services, albeit via a smaller network of satellites.

The EU’s planned IRIS² constellation is not expected to become operational until around 2030.

The UK still operates the Skynet military communications satellite system, although a planned upgrade to Skynet 6 is reportedly in trouble, with a critical “red” delivery rating from the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA).

The news follows recent revelations about the extent of Palantir’s deployment in the MoD, NHS, energy and police services.