State Department turns to Musk’s Starlink ahead of Melissa

The State Department has enlisted Starlink, the satellite internet service run by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to support its staff in Jamaica in the event that Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm that made landfall on October 28, disrupts communications on the island nation, the agency said. 

“We have pre-provisioned Starlink in Jamaica and will use it for communications if necessary,” a spokesperson for the agency said. If the damage is as bad as expected, the agency is likely to use Starlink for live service in Jamaica, another State Department official told Fast Company.

On-location agency staff are likely to use Starshield—a version of the Starlink service tailored for national-security applications—at the embassy, the second official said. The consumer service Starlink might be used by smaller teams who may need to travel within the country, the official added. 

The move shows how critical satellite-based internet has become in the wake of natural disasters, particularly when ground-based communications services go offline. It also demonstrates just how much the U.S. government has come to rely on technology made by Musk’s SpaceX technology, which now includes everything from rocket-launch services to consumer satellite internet. 

The State Department is one of a growing number of U.S. government agencies, including the National Science Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security, now using Starlink for a variety of purposes as varied as video calling, real-time data support, and research in Antarctica.

As SpaceX has ramped up sales of Starlink to the government, it has also built Starshield, a national-security-related service used within the Defense Department. The State Department has bought both services, deploying the SpaceX technology at several embassies. 

(The relationship between the two services has been murky. A Starlink outage over the summer also took Starshield offline.)

Relatedly, SpaceX often offers free Starlink services during emergencies. When asked what the company was doing to prepare for Hurricane Melissa, its media team directed Fast Company to an announcement explaining that people in Jamaica and the Bahamas could receive free service until the end of November. Customers who had already set up accounts, even those that were paused or suspended, will automatically receive a free credit, while those hoping to sign up for the first time can create a support ticket, the company said.

While Starlink service can be a life-saving tool during an emergency, critics have raised concerns about the U.S. government’s growing dependence on the technology—as well as on Musk’s influence on SpaceX. Earlier this year, for instance, Musk ordered that some Starlink terminals used by Ukrainian forces be taken offline amid their attempt to retake territory from Russia, Reuters reported.