Ukraine Might Be Modifying Starlink Dishes to Mount On Drones

Although many believed the war in Ukraine would be over in mere days, we are closing in on a year of vicious fighting. Early on, Ukraine gained a notable advantage over the Russian invaders: connectivity. Access to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet has allowed the Ukrainian Army to keep lines of communication open and control drone aircraft. A new report appears to show Ukraine has gotten even more creative with Starlink, modifying one of the dishes to mount it aboard a drone.

Images of the supposed Starlink-enabled quad-rotor craft come from a Russia-aligned Telegram channel. A pro-Russian paramilitary group known as KCPN claims to have captured a drone used by the Ukrainian army and decided to disassemble it to see how it was communicating with its controllers. Inside, they found a Starlink antenna.

KCPN claims the hardware is a high-performance dish, which SpaceX only started providing to Starlink RV customers in December. However, our friends at PCMag believe it’s more likely to be a standard Starlink dish. In either case, the antenna has been freed of its plastic housing to make it easier to fit on the drone. The drone also contains a Raspberry Pi 4 single-board computer and a CubePilot module for flight control.

With an integrated Starlink dish, the drone would have had internet access anywhere it could see open sky. That would allow it to be controlled from anywhere in the world. It could even supply Wi-Fi access to Ukrainian positions on the ground. However, drone aircraft don’t have exceptional battery life even before you start wiring satellite dishes to them — it’s unclear how long the autonomous vehicle could have operated. This probably runs afoul of some provision in the end-user license agreement for Starlink’s terminals, but Ukraine has bigger problems.

SpaceX was quick to begin sending Starlink terminals to Ukraine last year, though CEO Elon Musk later complained about the cost of providing service to Ukraine. Russia has been frustrated by the widespread use of Starlink by the Ukrainian military and has even hinted that it has the ability to shoot down the satellites. However, there are more than 3,000 in orbit, and SpaceX is constantly launching more. It recently deployed the first satellites in its Gen 2 network, which is intended to reduce congestion that has caused data speeds to drop over the past year. The FCC has granted SpaceX a license to deploy 7,500 Gen 2 satellites, but some groups are unhappy with Starlink’s expansion and are trying to have it put on hold.

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