Overview
During a Navy experiment last August, a worldwide outage of the Starlink satellite network left roughly two dozen unmanned surface vessels unable to communicate and inactive for close to an hour, according to internal Navy records and a person familiar with the tests. The incident, which affected operations off the California coast, underscored a vulnerability in military programs increasingly dependent on SpaceX’s satellite services to connect and control unmanned systems.
What happened during the tests
The Navy was conducting evaluations of unmanned maritime vessels intended to broaden operational options in a potential conflict with China when the Starlink outage occurred. The global network disruption interrupted control links to the small, speedboat-like autonomous boats, leaving the fleet of roughly two dozen vessels bobbing at sea and operations paused for almost an hour.
Those trials were not isolated. Navy documents reviewed by Reuters and additional internal safety reports indicate that Starlink-related connection problems have disrupted multiple autonomous boat tests. In one series of trials in April 2025 involving both unmanned maritime vessels and aerial drones, the Navy’s safety review noted that Starlink struggled to sustain strong network links when multiple vehicles demanded high volumes of data.
"Starlink reliance exposed limitations under multiple-vehicle load," the April 2025 Navy safety report said, also identifying problems tied to radios supplied by Silvus and a network system provided by Viasat.
Why Starlink matters to the military
SpaceX’s Starlink provides the Pentagon with access to a global low-earth orbit communications constellation that approaches a scale of nearly 10,000 satellites, according to the material reviewed. That footprint gives the military a network that can be more resilient to some types of attack than more limited satellite systems, and it has become central to programs ranging from drones to missile tracking.
Observers and defense experts view Starlink as a commercially available, low-cost option that can be rapidly fielded, enabling capabilities that might otherwise take longer or cost more to deploy. "If there was no Starlink, the U.S. government wouldn’t have access to a global constellation of low earth orbit communications," said Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Trade-offs and recent developments
Despite the operational setbacks documented in Navy reports, some analysts argue the benefits of Starlink outweigh the risks of episodic outages. Bryan Clark, an autonomous warfare expert at the Hudson Institute, said that the ubiquity and ease of access provided by a commercial service like Starlink make its vulnerabilities an acceptable trade-off for the capabilities it delivers to the military. "You accept those vulnerabilities because of the benefits you get from the ubiquity it provides," he said.
At the same time, Democratic lawmakers and Pentagon officials have raised concerns about overreliance on a single commercial provider to deliver critical national security capabilities. Those concerns have been reinforced by other recent supply decisions and disagreements, such as the Pentagon’s contentious dealings with an AI firm that exposed how dependency on a sole vendor can complicate defense operations when relationships sour.
Broader context within the sector
SpaceX has become a dominant supplier across several defense-relevant domains. The company not only operates Starlink but has also established positions in national security-focused satellite services and space launch, generating substantial government business. The company’s ascent has been noted alongside an expected public offering this summer that could value the firm as a roughly $2 trillion company, marking one of the largest IPOs anticipated.
Competition in low-earth orbit communications is emerging. Amazon announced an $11.6 billion deal this week to buy satellite maker Globalstar, signaling growing interest from other major technology firms in the market. Yet SpaceX remains well ahead in terms of deployed low-earth orbit capacity and contract wins.
Operationally, the U.S. Space Force has also shown a pattern of turning to SpaceX for launch services. Last month, the service reassigned an upcoming GPS launch to a SpaceX rocket for the fourth time following a malfunction in the Vulcan rocket manufactured by United Launch Alliance, the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture.
Trust and contractual questions
Concerns about reliance extend beyond intermittent technical failures. Last year, a report indicated that Starlink access was switched off unexpectedly for Ukrainian troops as they attempted to regain territory, a move that affected allies’ confidence in the service. In Taiwan, questions were raised about whether SpaceX limited satellite communications to U.S. service members, potentially contravening contractual expectations; a 2024 letter from then-U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher to SpaceX’s chief executive raised the issue, which SpaceX later disputed publicly. The current status of SpaceX-provided service in Taiwan to U.S. personnel could not be determined from available records and the Pentagon declined to comment on that matter for operational security reasons.
An official defense statement emphasized that, as a matter of operational security, the Department does not discuss plans, operations, capabilities or effects.
Operational lessons from the tests
Navy documents reveal intermittent connection issues in the weeks leading up to the August global outage, though the precise causes of those earlier losses were not immediately clear. The Navy’s report from April 2025 specifically tied some performance problems to the volume of data traffic required to manage multiple unmanned systems simultaneously. In addition to Starlink’s limitations under heavy load, the report flagged equipment and network integration issues involving third-party vendors.
These findings suggest that while Starlink can deliver rapid, cost-effective connectivity, integrating commercial satellite services into complex, multi-vehicle military operations presents engineering and operational challenges that the Navy and other services must address.
What officials have said
The Department of Defense’s chief information officer, Kirsten Davies, stated that the Department "leverages multiple, robust, resilient systems for its broad network," but the Pentagon did not respond to questions specifically about the unmanned vessel test or the extent of SpaceX’s work with the Navy. SpaceX and the Navy did not provide comment in response to inquiries.
Implications
The Navy’s experience with Starlink highlights a dilemma for defense planners: commercial satellite services can accelerate capability deployment and reduce costs, but they may also introduce single-vendor dependencies that create operational and strategic risk. As the Pentagon continues to make use of commercial capabilities, the documented disruptions underscore the need to assess resilience, load capacity, and integration across the ecosystem of vendors that support autonomous systems and military communications.
Further attention to multi-vendor redundancy, rigorous testing under heavy loads, and clearer contractual guardrails could be pathways to mitigate the risks revealed by these tests, though the internal reports and public statements reviewed do not prescribe specific remedies.