00:00Starlink, so the commercial element, is just the number of satellites. I mean, over 10,000 in orbit.
00:08I mean, it's an extraordinary number. So that's the kind of first thing I've always, when I think about this,
00:14I've always got to say to myself, actually, you're talking about orders of magnitude, larger numbers of satellites up there.
00:21In terms of what the difference is, Starshield is really the military governmental element, if you like,
00:29which kind of almost sits on top of Starlink, but not quite, because there are some capabilities within Starshield that
00:39you can't get with Starlink.
00:40Starlink's commercial. Well, in a way, if you kind of think about the whole, you know, Starlink is fundamentally infrastructure.
00:50It's a communications network, which allows voice and imagery to be moved around.
01:01Starshield sits on top of that, does the same, but at a higher level of security.
01:08So if you were concerned about, you know, vulnerability, jamming, hacking,
01:17you would look to a higher level of security, a higher level of encryption,
01:21and that's fundamentally what you get with Starshield.
01:23A buzz phrase, but, you know, it's been around again for a long, situational awareness, you know,
01:29knowing what's going on in your battle space, on the battlefield.
01:36Starlink and Starlink and Starshield provide that capability.
01:40So they allow you to basically network together a whole range of sensors,
01:48be it on uninhabited aerial vehicles, drones, or different platforms.
01:56And it provides a communications infrastructure as well, right across the board,
02:02so that you can, you know, you can get a sense of, you know, where your own forces are,
02:09what they are doing.
02:10More importantly, obviously, what the opponent is doing,
02:14in pretty much in real time.
02:16What the kind of Starlink, Starshields of this world give you is the ability to communicate
02:22with those systems, with the uninhabited aerial vehicles,
02:28basically either to command them or to see the imagery that they are actually looking up,
02:33maybe, you know, 100 to 150 kilometers away.
02:37So they will, a lot of these UAVs will have electro-optical sensors,
02:43so you can see on your terminal the image that has been relayed back to you from the UAV,
02:50and then you can command it to do things.
02:53Or you can build, you know, an intelligence and reconnaissance picture,
02:58not just from one UAV, but from a whole, you know, range of them,
03:02so that you're building up a picture of the battlefield.
03:05I think they're extraordinarily important,
03:06and I think you can see that in the sense of how concerned nations are becoming
03:12about what gets called counter-space capabilities.
03:16So the vulnerabilities of your satellite network
03:19and what you're doing to protect that.
03:22Obviously, the US recently said, in very general terms,
03:27it had capabilities to defend its satellites in orbit.
03:32And I think that merely reflects how reliant the major military powers are becoming,
03:40if, you know, if, in fact, they already are,
03:44in terms of the reliance on space infrastructure.
03:47Well, you would lose your comms.
03:49You lose your communications.
03:51You'd have to find other ways of doing it.
03:53There obviously are.
03:56But that would be, if you've, you know,
03:58and obviously Ukraine has built a whole approach around access to this kind of technology
04:04and these kinds of systems.
04:06So that would be, it would have a negative impact, obviously.
04:10In terms of UAV operations, again, the same kind of thing.
04:13So you're basically looking at your kind of command, control, intelligence, surveillance,
04:20reconnaissance networks being significantly degraded.
04:24You know, I think there is a kind of renewed concern and interest
04:31in what sometimes gets called sovereign capability.
04:34So actually having a national capability in this area.
04:39As soon as you rely on an external provider, potentially a commercial provider,
04:46then obviously there's an inherent risk that they may make a decision
04:51or their government may make a decision for them,
04:53which is not necessarily in your favour.
04:59...jumps like you would be.
05:01So if you'll have time after the war, you're very welcome.
05:04I invite you.
05:06Yes.
05:06That sounds good.
05:07Well, I look forward to visiting once things...
05:10The concern or the issue with Starlink, Starshield in Ukraine kind of speaks to that,
05:16speaks to the kind of changing nature of the relationship.
05:18In the same sense that traditionally, military satellite communications
05:24was very, was very, was limited to, you know, to a few providers
05:29with a handful of satellites.
05:31You now have a very large commercial company,
05:34which is offering that kind of capability,
05:39if not quite globally, then very broadly.
05:43But if you're a customer, you are kind of dependent on that availability being there.
05:50Sometimes U.S. decision-making process is a peak, it's difficult to see what was actually happening.
05:57Obviously, there have been some recent tensions between Washington and Kyiv.
06:01Whether the Starlink, Starshield situation reflected that,
06:07that is, I think, is an interesting thing to speculate about.
06:12It does appear that, at least for the moment, it may have been resolved.
06:18But it's an area that I'm sure Kyiv will be very keen to see,
06:23that that channel, if you like, has kept open,
06:26that whole communications architecture.
