The Download: Ukraine’s Starlink repair shop, and predicting solar storms
1 min read
Summary
The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine is impacting multiple areas of citizens’ everyday lives, and one crucial area where it is hitting particularly hard is communications, with many areas in the country without reliable connectivity.
However, Starlink is providing invaluable services to the country’s military, enabling troops to communicate with head offices and stay in touch with families back home.
Elon Musk’s fickle foreign policy and reports suggesting he may remove Ukraine’s access to Starlink services has thrown its future into doubt, but at present it is still down to the unofficial community of users and engineers to keep the country’s communications going, including the expert “Dr. Starlink”, who has customised over 15,000 terminals since the war began.