Starlink is critical in support of Ukraine, and it will continue

Ukrainian drone boat with two Starlink terminals (source Oleg Kutkov)

At 4:04 AM on February 26 Mykhailo Fedorov, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, requested Starlink service from Elon Musk, and at 2:45 PM on the 26th, Elon Musk tweeted "Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route." On February 28 at 12:29 PM Fedorov posted a photo of a truckload of terminals. (Kyiv is 10 hours ahead of California) and an engineer, Oleg Kutkov, posted the first tweet from Ukraine, showing a download speed of 136.76 Mb/s and an upload speed of 23.93 Mb/s.  (Kutkov was among the "people embodying the spirit of Ukraine," chosen by Time Magazine as Person of the Year for 2022).

On March 19^th there were 5,000 terminals in Ukraine and it was clear that Starlink would play an unprecedented, critical role in the war. President Zelenskyy was using social media and teleconferencing in his roles as Commander in Chief of the armed forces, a global diplomat, and a leader of the Ukrainian people. Starlink was being used to compensate for Russian destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure, by civilians and on the battlefield, often in conjunction with drones. Starlink has also enabled important civilian volunteer contributions to the war effort, reminiscent of the working women and the victory gardens during World War 2  in the US.

Starlink’s value is now well established. Kutkov estimates that there are around 170,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine, which is constantly increasing. For example:

• The armed forces have around 100,000 terminals provided by various ministries.
• It is common for soldiers to purchase their own terminals. (One retailer has sold almost 2,000 terminals to soldiers so far this year).
• There are thousands of terminals on drone aircraft and boats built by local companies. (One local vendor bought 10,000 terminals for drones).
•  Charity foundations like Serhiy Prytula contribute terminals. (The retail price of a roaming terminal in Ukraine is $613).
• Private donors (including Kutkov) contribute drones and terminals. 
• One service center reported that 90% of the military terminals coming for repairs are privately owned.

Musk’s Grok AI chatbot estimates Starlink’s revenue for Ukraine support is “likely in the ballpark of $150-250 million per year as of now”, a relatively unimportant amount, and about $50 million of that is paid by Poland, which shares a border with Ukraine, has expressed a willingness to seek alternatives to Starlink if necessary and was invaded by Hitler 1939.

Because of recent statements and actions by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, Ukraine and its allies became concerned that Starlink service might possibly be cut off.  

As enumerated in this timeline, Trump has upended the US approach to Ukraine and treated Moscow more as an ally since he became President, culminating in his recent suspension of military aid to and intelligence sharing with Ukraine after he and Vice President Vance berated Zelenskyy in a televised meeting, overstating the amount of US support, falsely claiming that Ukraine had not thanked the US for it’s support and insisting on a “deal” with no security guarantee. 

(Recall that in September 1938, English, French, and Italian leaders signed the Munich Agreement, giving Hitler control of Czechoslovakia in exchange for his promise not to take more land in Europe, and Ukrainians are dying in this war).

Elon Musk has also urged Ukraine to accept peace without a security guarantee to stop the bloodshed. His statement that without Starlink the entire front line would collapse caused concern that he might cut Starlink service off.

Thankfully, Musk has since clarified his position, stating:

"To be extremely clear, no matter how much I disagree with the Ukraine policy, Starlink will never turn off its terminals. Without Starlink, the Ukrainian lines would collapse, as the Russians can jam all other communications! We would never do such a thing or use it as a bargaining chip."

Taking Musk at his word, Starlink service will remain available.

Guowang finally launches ten large production satellites

The first ten Guowang production satellites (source)

In April 2020, The Chinese State Council's executive meeting declared information technology, including satellite Internet,  an important part of the “new technology” and in October, China applied for Guowang, a  12,992-satellite Internet service constellation. Subsequently, a few Guowang test satellites were launched and two other large Chinese constellations were announced, and one, Thousand Sails,  already has 54 satellites in orbit. (Thousand Sails launches have had problems with debris and orbit raising, which attests to the immaturity of the Chinese space industry). Finally, Guowang has launched its first production satellites.

As shown above, ten satellites were launched into orbits about 1,100 kilometers above the Earth, with an inclination of 86.5 degrees. The satellites were launched on a Long March 5B rocket which can carry 23,000 Kg to low-Earth orbit (LEO) and they were stacked in a manner that optimized “the use of vertical and radial space within the payload fairing.” If the rocket was fully loaded, they would be quite large – over 2,000 kg each.

For comparison, Starlink’s current V2-mini satellites are 750-800 kg, and the V3 satellites, which will not begin launching until SpaceX's Starship rockets are in service, are expected to be around 1,900 kg.

Thousand Sail's satellites are smaller than either. They recently launched 18 satellites using a Long March 6A rocket which can carry 4,000 kg to sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). I could not find a mass to LEO for the Long March 6A so I asked four AI services to estimate what a rocket capable of launching 4,000 kg to SSO would be able to launch to LEO. The average estimate was 5,700 kg total or only 317 kg per satellite.

Assuming capability is a function of mass, Guowang satellites will be significantly more powerful than Thousand Sails or Starlink's current satellites. I don't know what those functional differences will be – greater capacity, faster data rates, more power, improved inter-satellite capability, connectivity to 6G devices, etc. For speculation on the features of Starlink's forthcoming V3 satellites see slide 62 in this presentation and this article).

The Guowang constellation will also orbit at a relatively high altitude. The first ten are at 1,100 km and over half the planned constellation will be roughly the same altitude.  Similarly, Thousand Sails' initial 1.296 satellites are orbiting at 1,160 km. While Starlink initially applied to have some 1,100 km satellites, they later lowered their planned orbits. Guowang's relatively high altitude will help compensate for a lack of ground stations.

In an earlier post, I asked whether Guowang could manufacture and launch satellites fast enough to meet Its ITU commitment of launching 10% of the constellation within two years after the bring-into-use (BIU) date 50% by year 5 and all by year 7. Now that production satellites are in orbit and working, I assume the BIU clock has started or will start soon. Given the mass and orbit altitudes of the satellites and Chinese satellite manufacturing and launch capability, they will have a difficult time meeting the ITU deadlines despite new rockets, but in our politically divided world, some nations may ignore those deadlines or Guowang might simply reapply. (It’s even conceivable that Starlink could launch some Guowang satellites since Elon Musk has to please the Chinese government to protect Tesla’s sales and manufacturing in China).

Guowang is late, but the government is committed and the satellites may be comparable to Starlink's V3 satellites. If they can launch the constellation, there will still be a market in serving BRICS and other politically-allied or neutral nations as well as sensitive government and military organizations that are increasingly concerned with Elon Musk’s political ties and mercurial nature. The large mass of their satellites may also result in features that increase their appeal in some applications like backhaul from remote locations that are not reached by fiber. It will be interesting to see what happens when Guowang ITU deadlines expire.

Update 3/8/2025

GuoWang has launched another batch of satellites on a Long March 8A rocket. Space Force cataloged nine objects in orbit, suggesting eight payloads in 862 by 870-kilometer orbits inclined by 50.0 degrees. While I could not find any definitive data online, Grok estimates that a Long March 8A could likely launch 7,200 kg to that orbit, which would imply about 800 kg per satellite, around the mass of the current V2 Starlink satellites and more than double the mass of the Thousand Sails satellites.