The Pentagon has been left in awe after SpaceX successfully shut down a Russian electromagnetic warfare attack in Ukraine.
Last month, the company acted rapidly to stifle a Russian effort to disconnect Ukrainians from the internet by jamming the Starlink broadband service.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk promptly steered thousands of Starlink terminals to Ukraine after an official sent him a tweet asking for help.
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The Pentagon was left impressed, admitting they could could take a page out of Musk's and SpaceX’s book for future issues.
During a C4ISRNET Conference this week, the United States admitted they could learn a lot from how the private sector handled such a situation.
Dave Tremper, director of electronic warfare for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said: “The next day [after the Russian jamming effort], Starlink had slung a line of code and fixed it.
“And suddenly that [attack] was not effective anymore. From EW (electromagnetic warfare) technologist’s perspective, that is fantastic … and how they did that was eye-watering to me.”
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He went on to explain how the government has significant processes that make it impossible to act so swiftly, such as analysis of what happened, decisions on how to fix it, and then getting a contract in place to fix the problem.
He continued: “We need to be able to have that agility.
“We need to be able to change our electromagnetic posture to be able to change, very dynamically, what we’re trying to do without losing capability along the way.”
Tremper went on to say the United States expected a ‘much stronger’ electromagnetic warfare showing from Russia.
Musk has been a thorn in the side of Russia since the invasion of Ukraine began.
Russia announced in March that they would be halting supplies of rocket missiles to the United States, implying the country wouldn’t be able to travel to space without the Russian engines.
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Russian politician, Dmitry Rogozin said: “In a situation like this we can't supply the United States with our world's best rocket engines. Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don't know what.”
Musk seemingly took exception to the comment and said he accepted the challenge.
Less than 24 hours after Russia’s comments, SpaceX tweeted a video of their Falcon 9 launching 47 Starlink satellites to orbit.
Musk mocked Rogozin’s comments, tweeting in reply: “American Broomstick.”
Jayden Collins