SpaceX
Ukraine seeks Starlink alternatives from the EU
Ukraine is exploring EU satellite alternatives to Starlink, driven by concerns over Elon Musk’s unpredictability. Starlink remains vital for Ukraine’s battlefield connectivity and cannot be easily replaced. While the European Union has started developing Starlink alternatives, they have not quite reached SpaceX’s capacity to provide internet connection.
Starlink’s Critical Role and Vulnerabilities
Starlink’s 7,000+ satellite network provides essential connectivity for Ukraine’s military. However, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s influence has raised strategic concerns.
“Elon Musk is, in fact, the guardian of Ukraine’s connectivity on the battlefield. And that’s a strategic vulnerability,” warns Arthur De Liedekerke, Senior Director of European Affairs for Rasmussen Global.
Opinions of Musk have started to influence dealings with any of his companies, including SpaceX and Tesla. Starlink has not escaped criticism due to its relationship with Musk, resulting in a few governments seeking alternatives to SpaceX’s internet services.
For instance, the German military has announced plans to develop a Starlink alternative. Kyiv and the EU are also seeking options to reduce reliance on Starlink.
EU’s Govsatcom as a Near-Term Option
Member of the EU Parliament (MEP) Christophe Grudler pitched the European Union’s Govsatcom system as a viable alternative to Starlink for Ukraine.
“It is clear that if Starlink decides to cut the signal today, we have options, in particular with Govsatcom, which is the European network that we have brought into service and which, from June, will make it possible to supplement Starlink’s missing signal in Ukraine, if necessary,” he said.
Grudler affirmed: “The European Union is very committed to helping Ukraine, so there would certainly be agreement from all the Member States to come to Ukraine’s aid if it no longer had a Starlink signal in the future.”
However, De Liedekerke pointed out that GovSatcom was made for government use. He noted that “GoveSatcom is a governmental secure satellite communications and it’s essentially to provide reliable, secure, strategically autonomous networks for communication services between governments in the EU. It couldn’t replace the kind of battlefield connectivity that we’re discussing for Ukraine. So it’s not a silver bullet at the moment.”
Eutelsat’s Competitive Edge
Eutelsat, a Franco-British operator, offers a low-Earth orbit network with 630 satellites and 35 geostationary ones, though it trails Starlink’s scale. It has 2,000 terminals deployed in Ukraine and 14,000 more planned to deploy. Starlink has 40,000 terminals in Ukraine, used by the military and civilians.
Price is another factor to consider when seeking a Starlink alternative. Eutelsat’s €9,000 terminals are pricier than Starlink’s €500 units.
“Eutelsat is our European champion, one that has convincing functioning solutions. And one that we need to be able to support through funding and political will,” De Liedekerke said, noting its political independence from the U.S.
Iris2 as a Future Solution
The EU’s Iris2 project is another Starlink alternative Ukraine might consider. The Iris2 project is a 290-satellite constellation, promising secure, low-latency connectivity by 2030, with partial operations by 2028.
“From 2028, we will have an operational Iris2 constellation that will be able to provide telecommunications services to all the Member States that so wish. I would add that this will be the first time we have had a constellation secured with post-quantum cryptography, so cyber-attacks will not be possible on this constellation. It will be a world first with an ultra-secure signal, which is not the case with the Starlink signal either,” Grudler said. ‘
Led by the SpaceRISE consortium, Iris2 offers a long-term alternative, though its timeline limits immediate impact.
Strategic Diversification
De Liedekerke has stressed the need for options aside from Starlink.
“It’s about having options. It’s about not having a single point of failure. It’s being able to say no to one and still be online. And today, we’re not in a situation where we can do that. We’ve let Ukraine’s war zone connectivity be in the hands of one man…that’s a strategic vulnerability.
By having options, by having alternatives, by diversifying our partnerships, we avoid that single point of failure.”
Ukraine’s pursuit of EU solutions aims to ensure battlefield resilience. However, the EU has some way to go before it can match Starlink’s reach.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
News
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 faces wrath of the Texas skies
SpaceX pushed Starship Flight 13 to Friday, blaming weather instead of the previous engine issues.
SpaceX called off Thursday’s launch attempt of Starship Flight 13, pushing the mission to Friday because of weather tied to Tropical Storm Bertha. The company confirmed the delay on X, noting “Now targeting Friday, July 24 for Starship’s thirteenth flight test, due to weather. A key objective for the flight test is to get clear imagery from the ground of Starship’s heatshield as it flies at a higher dynamic pressure during ascent, which won’t be possible with today’s weather conditions.”
This is the second delay for Flight 13 in two weeks. SpaceX first tried to launch the mission on July 16, but the countdown ended in an automated abort at T-0 when four of Super Heavy Booster 20’s 33 Raptor engines failed to ignite. Musk said at the time that two Raptors would need to be removed and replaced, as Teslarati reported. The company spent the following week destacking Ship 40 and Booster 20, swapping engines, and running leak checks before restacking the vehicle on Pad 2 Wednesday night, according to Spaceflight Now’s live coverage.
Unlike the engine problem, Thursday’s delay has nothing to do with the hardware. SpaceX wants clean footage of Starship’s heat shield captured from the ground as the vehicle flies through max dynamic pressure, something the storm’s cloud cover over South Texas would not allow. The company said visibility should improve for Friday’s attempt, with the same 90 minute window opening at 5:45 p.m. CT.
Flight 13 will be the second outing for the V3 versions of Starship and Super Heavy, following their debut on Flight 12 in May. The mission carries 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, the first time SpaceX has flown operational satellites rather than mass simulators on Starship. Six of those satellites are fitted with cameras to inspect the heat shield from a different angle during ascent, giving engineers a second data source beyond the ground imagery the weather is currently blocking.
Booster 20 will attempt a boostback burn and a splashdown landing burn in the Gulf of America, while Ship 40 follows a suborbital trajectory toward a landing in the Indian Ocean. The flight plan largely mirrors Flight 12, though the booster will run a more aggressive ascent burn after max Q this time, and the ship’s heat shield includes load sensing tiles meant to measure stress at the higher dynamic pressure SpaceX is targeting.
If Friday’s attempt succeeds, Flight 13 could be the last suborbital test in the program. SpaceX is already looking to push for an orbital flight on Flight 14.
In a striking revelation that underscores the lucrative crossover between Big Tech and space exploration, Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, disclosed a massive $94.1 billion equity stake in SpaceX following the rocket company’s blockbuster initial public offering earlier this year.
The disclosure came in Alphabet’s quarterly filing, marking the first time the long-held private investment has been publicly valued at market prices. Google was an early backer, investing alongside Fidelity in 2015 with roughly $500-900 million at a time when SpaceX was valued around $12 billion.
That bet has delivered extraordinary returns, roughly a hundredfold, transforming a strategic play on satellite internet and launch capabilities into one of Alphabet’s largest assets.
Google, $GOOGL, has said they hold $94 billion in SpaceX, $SPCX, shares after IPO.
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) July 23, 2026
Of the total holding, approximately $80 billion remains subject to short-term post-IPO lockup restrictions, preventing near-term sales. An additional $14.1 billion faces longer-term restrictions, extending into the third quarter of 2027. This structure limits immediate liquidity but protects against market volatility as SpaceX transitions into public trading.
The SpaceX position contributed significantly to gains in Alphabet’s broader investment portfolio, which also includes a major stake in AI leader Anthropic. Combined, these holdings helped drive nearly $100 billion in investment gains during the second quarter, providing a substantial boost to net income amid ongoing AI spending pressures.
Analysts view the disclosure as validation of Alphabet’s venture strategy beyond its core search and cloud businesses. The investment aligns with deeper ties, including reported multi-billion-dollar deals for AI computing capacity on SpaceX infrastructure. As SpaceX advances Starship flights, Starlink expansion, and ambitious Mars goals under Elon Musk, Google’s stake positions it to benefit from the commercialization of space.
For Alphabet, the windfall highlights how patient, forward-looking bets in transformative sectors can yield outsized rewards. While lockups temper short-term impact, the holding cements SpaceX as a cornerstone of Alphabet’s diversified portfolio in an era where aerospace, AI, and connectivity increasingly intersect. Investors will watch closely as restrictions lift and SpaceX’s public performance unfolds.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
