Starlink Satellites Augmenting U.S. Air Force Communications Across The Indo-Pacific

Officials at the home of United States Forces Japan said this week, that the Air Force is using commercial Starlink satellite internet service to communicate with airmen dispersed across the Indo-Pacific.

During a visit Monday, by the Air Force Expeditionary Center’s commander, Maj. Gen. John Klein, the 730th Air Mobility Squadron showed off one of three recently acquired Starlink terminals.

A Starlink terminal set up inside a C-130J Super Hercules airlifter at Yokota allowed Klein to video conference with an airman who was using a Starlink terminal on Diego Garcia, an island more than 5,000 miles away in the Indian Ocean. The system could be used by contingency response forces such as those who deployed to Afghanistan to evacuate U.S. troops and civilians in August 2021, the commander said after the demonstration.

“We are looking to give our units throughout the Pacific the ability to communicate with command-and-control entities," Klein said on Tuesday, as he prepared to depart Yokota. "They are evolving to do that in support of agile combat employment.”

Agile combat employment is the ability to move aircraft rapidly to a network of smaller airfields. U.S. forces are honing agile combat employment skills in the Western Pacific to avoid being targeted by Chinese missiles in the event of war.

The Starlink systems cost $350 and deliver data at a rate of 120 megabytes per second under a subscription that costs $109 a month, Staff Sgt. Alejandro Flores, a client systems technician with the 730th, said after Monday’s demonstration. The systems work with the Air Force’s secure internet routers used for secret communication.

The Air Force has its own satellite internet system called Hawkeye that’s a lot more expensive and slower, Flores added. A Hawkeye dish costs $250,000 and provides internet speeds of 4 megabytes per second, Flores said.

SpaceX has launched nearly 4,000 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit since 2019. According to the company, Starlink provides highspeed internet to more than a million locations around the world.