The chief of the U.S. Space Force has reviewed how Washington may respond if Moscow shoot down Western commercial satellites.
General Chance Saltzman said at a press conference in Hawaii on September 20 that U.S. civilian and military satellites and space capabilities are under threat from nations like China and Russia. He outlined how Washington could respond should Moscow attack SpaceX's Starlink broadband network. Ukraine has been using Starlink for Internet connectivity in Russia's full-scale invasion.
Saltzman was responding to questions from reporters about threats made by Russia in October 2022 that the country could destroy Western commercial satellites should they be used to assist Ukraine in the war.
Konstantin Vorontsov is the deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department. He said last October that the use of military purposes” by the West constitutes an “extremely dangerous trend.”
Vladimir Ermakov is the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control. On Monday, he echoed Vorontsov's remarks when he said quasi-civilian Western satellites could be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike.
Saltzman indicated that the U.S. would defend its commercial satellites should they come under attack.
Saltzman added that in a modern war, “there are going to be commercial entities, commercial organizations, commercial capabilities and assets that get caught up in the conflicts. Space is no different than sea lanes. It's no different than civilian airliner traffic in Europe right now. The U.S. has a long history of saying we're going to protect the things that we need to be successful. So it would stand to reason that that same philosophy would extend into space, and I have no reason to believe that that will be different.”
Neither Russian official indicated which companies have assisted Ukraine in the war via satellite technology. However, in the early days of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Elon Musk's SpaceX deployed its Starlink satellites to help provide Kyiv with internet service. Musk has stated that SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet system provides Ukraine with a "major battlefield advantage."
The company has so far privately funded a network of nearly 4,000 satellites which are to be launched into low-Earth orbit. Ukrainian troops have used Starlink for battlefield communications in the war with Russia.
Gwynne Shotwell is SpaceX's president and chief operating officer, In February, she said the company was preventing Kyiv from using the network to control drones in the region, saying the service was "never meant to be weaponized."
Musk has also refused to allow Ukraine to use Starlink internet services to launch an attack on Crimea to avoid complicity in a “major act of war.” which was annexed by Russia in 2014.
Musk wrote in early September that “There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol. The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor. If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”
John Kirby is the White House National Security Council spokesperson. He said in October 2022 that the U.S. would “continue to pursue all means to expose, deter and hold Russia accountable for any such attack should that occur.”