去年8月，美国海军官员在对无人舰艇进行测试时，意识到他们遇到了一个单点故障：星链。埃隆·马斯克卫星网络的全球中断影响了数百万用户，导致两打无人水面舰艇在加利福尼亚海岸附近漂流，通信中断并导致操作停止近一个小时。
根据路透社查阅的内部文件和知情人士透露，这起涉及旨在增强美军在潜在冲突中作战选项的无人机项目事件，是与SpaceX星链相关的数次测试中断之一，导致操作员无法连接自主船只。随着SpaceX有望在今年夏天实现2万亿美元的公开募股，该公司通过提供从卫星通信到空间发射和军事AI的一系列技术，已确立了其作为全球最有价值空间公司的地位，成为美国政府不可或缺的合作伙伴。
特别是星链，已证明是包括无人机到导弹追踪在内的关键项目的核心，其拥有近1万颗卫星的低轨星座。这种规模为军方提供了一个能够抵御对手攻击的网络。然而，海军在无人机项目中遭遇的星链事故突显了美军对SpaceX日益增长的依赖挑战以及随之而来的风险。战略与国际研究中心（CSIS）航空航天安全项目副主任克莱顿·斯沃普表示：“如果没有星链，美国政府将无法获得全球性的低轨通信星座。”五角大楼首席信息官克里斯汀·戴维斯表示，国防部正在利用多种稳健且具韧性的系统。但对于此次具体的无人机测试故障，五角大楼并未做出回应。
Last August, U.S. Navy officials carrying out a test of unmanned vessels realized they had hit a single point of failure: Starlink. A global outage across Elon Musk’s satellite network affecting millions of Starlink users had left two dozen unmanned surface vessels bobbing off the California coast, disrupting communications and halting operations for almost an hour.The incident, which involved drones intended to bolster U.S. military options in a conflict with China, was one of several Navy test disruptions linked to SpaceX’s Starlink that left operators unable to connect with autonomous boats, according to internal Navy documents reviewed by Reuters and a person familiar with the matter. As SpaceX rockets toward a $2 trillion public offering this summer – expected to be the largest ever – the company has secured its position as the world’s most valuable space company in part by being indispensable to the U.S. government with an array of technologies spanning satellite communications to space launches and military AI. Starlink, in particular, has proved key to crucial programs - from drones to missile tracking - with a low-earth orbit constellation of close to 10,000 satellites, a scale that provides the military with a network resilient against potential adversary attacks. But the Navy’s mishaps with Starlink for its autonomous drone program, which have not been previously reported, highlight the challenges of the U.S. military’s growing reliance on SpaceX and the risks it brings to the Pentagon.“If there was no Starlink, the U.S. government wouldn’t have access to a global constellation of low earth orbit communications,” said Clayton Swope, a deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The Pentagon did not respond to questions about the drone test or SpaceX’s work with the Navy. The Pentagon’s chief information officer, Kirsten Davies, said the “Department leverages multiple, robust, resilient systems for its broad network.”The Navy and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.Elon Musk at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, New Jersey, March 22, 2025. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images) Despite facing growing competition from Amazon.com, which announced an $11.6 billion agreement this week to acquire satellite maker Globalstar, SpaceX remains far ahead in low-earth orbit communications.Beyond drones, SpaceX has cemented a near-monopoly for space launches and provides satellite communications with Starlink and its national security-focused constellation, Starshield, generating billions of dollars for the company. Last month, U.S. Space Force said it had reassigned its upcoming GPS launch to a SpaceX rocket for the fourth time, due to a glitch in the Vulcan rocket made by the Boeing and Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance.WARNINGS ABOUT RELYING ON SPACEX Democratic lawmakers have warned the Pentagon about the risks of its reliance on a sin
