Starlink to take over $2.4B contract to overhaul air traffic control comms
theverge.com
theverge.com
Prescribed users will get access to net and non-users will get forked as per-usual. But with an Elon branded fork instead.
I also expect he's eager to make it proprietary. That way it would then force all other airlines that route through the USA to have a Starlink terminals too.
However, this "fix" not being put out for bid is ridiculous. That's not how competition and the market works. This feels like African-style "whatchu gonna do about it" big man corruption.
Just another asset they don't have to manage. It's not like they're short of money.
The antenna on every plane is provided by Iridium/Inmarsat and is a totally different thing from this.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43206833
Here's this FAA video about the matter. Keyword relevant to Starlink is RTIR https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/an...
No attempt whatever there to avoid the obvious conflict of interest.
As a result, air traffic is noticeably more dangerous, and many lost their livelihoods in these increasingly uncertain times, just to make the wealthiest man on Earth a bit more wealthy. The "Fell for it Again Award" goes to...
[1] https://apnews.com/article/faa-firings-trump-doge-safety-air...
What was illegal about how it was done?
> FAA Administrator Sean Duffy said over the weekend that no air traffic controllers or critical safety personnel were cut.
Decisions made at lunches and then the contract award process skewed to award the correct person, at some insane markup over real market prices for the same service.
The process is unfixable. Instead we should just look at a teams total cost and total achievement every year, and if the money they've spent doesn't look good value for money, we give them a bad performance review and their government career will be tricky to repair.
That is a far stronger incentive to get the most out of taxpayer money than ever stricter, yet super easy to game, anti corruption measures.
The risk adverse nature of the govt needs to be fixed before the incentives align.
It's not universally done, though. It depends on how the program office(s) involved decide to run things.
EDIT: To expand. Look at space systems. The ground stations are not tied to specific space systems (though some space systems develop their own ground networks), that is a separate program from the satellites and SOCs. There is no one "space program". And even for a particular satellite system the SOC may be under a separate contract vehicle than the satellite itself.
NASA did this with the commercial crew program, awarding to both SpaceX and Boeing to reduce risk.
Though you also have that done for aircraft. The F-35 was selected among several aircraft that were being developed by various contractors as the one to move forward as the JSF. This is where the lifecycle of a program comes into play. In the R&D stages you'll see multiple options quite commonly because they want to compete different vendors. Eventually it whittles down to one for things like aircraft to move forward. Though, using the JSF as an example, maybe they should select multiple. LM were the geniuses that thought you could increase software productivity by hiring more programmers and having them work in shifts.
Given the systemic corruption elsewhere, I can’t summon anger about this until I can verify if the utility is necessary and uniquely provided by Starlink. If so, then this is just bad optics. If not, it should be aggressively fought.
As I said, I don’t have the full context here.
All these arguments (and this article) come from a place of ignorance)
While I acknowledge their success in space, a LOT of guardrails/regulation were placed upon them to assure safe progress. Now they're both running the regulatory agency while also providing the end-product, which may mean faster progress but less safety overall.
Air travel is, generally, safe. The US has an issue with low staffing levels in ATC, and while automated systems have helped, the workload is still too high. It will likely be years before a Starlink product would come online, so staffing levels need to be addressed in the near-term.
Not to mention the early model was built on govt contracts because the govt was the only institution capable of shouldering the risk of an unproven space vendor.
Not saying that’s a bad thing, just that the success of SpaceX and the govt were tightly coupled.
I chose that example in particular because Starlink has done more for rural broadband access than everything else the federal government has done combined.
It seems pretty clear to me that Starlink has been a good investment, from both private and public perspectives
Please convince me why this view is incorrect, I am open to listen.
Starlink technologically can provide better connectivity in terms of speed and reliability compared to Verizon (can doesn’t mean it will of course). So there is some credibility to the decision.
But of course populace prefer to focus on flamboyant personalities instead of “based on cost, risk, timetables” ain’t it?
It’s possible, although I have not verified, that the contract was written in such a way that Verizon was the only qualified applicant because of lobbying.
So, could bad things still lead to good things? Of course. Do we generally accept "ends justifies the means"? I didn't think so?
As for downsides, I confess the five year life cycle of the satellites is of some concern to me. Seems more so of a problem the more of them you have to put up there?
But also "I am going to Colombia to bring some cocaine home." and "I am going to Washington to assassinate the president." and "The right of the people to keep and bear nuclear bombs shall not be infringed." and any number of other things that don't immediately threaten the plane's integrity.
However I'd rather have the backhaul between air traffic control centers done by fiber rather than by Starlink...
Not to mention the naked corruption
Of course Verizon can fsck it up as well, but multiple leased fiber lines, possibly direct MPLS with guarantees on latency and bandwidth, or maybe even DWDM between major locations sounds more reliable to my instincts.
Most importantly I don't trust the hatchet job way this is done, not just on Starlink use, but the whole hatchet job with FAA.
With density of flights in USA, intra-ATC Comms are non trivial part of safety - passing flight information on structured messages rather than by hand between areas is... More than important.
https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/an...
A lot of interconnections between US ATC services were done back with the good old Bell System over then new T1/T3 digital carriers, plus analog leased lines in some cases, that provided high reliability and high quality of service links for both data and voice (which could include voice connection to remote radio transceivers).
This is, of course, being phased out even from "compatibility mode" setups where you get old style trunks that are backed by newer infrastructure. So the network infrastructure is literally dying out.
A comparable setup with modern tech would be MPLS fiber backbone with capacity reservation (thus actually getting stable latency and bandwidth guarantees), which would allow creation of virtual meshes with different QoS requirements that would provide both stable voice service (including from centralized ATC to remote radar transceivers), guaranteed performance data links (for example for radars etc), slower but still guaranteed service bulk data transfers, etc.
I might have also mentioned DWDM, which essentially lets you create a physical fiber optic path where switching is done by optical elements based on frequency of the signal (so you can pack multiple signals into one fiber then route them to different ports etc. etc.) - very useful if you want no variability in connection while still be able to reroute them fast.
Where Starlink comes in is in the intermediate step. Before Verizon finishes running their MPLS network, there's a program called RTRI that provides an off ramp for TDM, so when Lumen stops serving, they have something. It's contracted to L3Harris and runs over SDWAN while using any network as an overlay. Satellite (including GEO), Cable and 5G (anything available really)
That said, I may have been reading misinformation and it’s only provided to ATC towers.
Why? Verizon has been delivering top of the line cellular service for multiple decades now. Starlink is quite new on the scene and given that they’ve now captured management of the agency they’re selling to, they have no incentive to actually provide high quality service. They could do a shitty job and keep the contract, so why would they bother to do well?
I think this is probably the key piece I didn’t consider. SpaceX’s previous work was done under heavy competitive pressure so they had to do good. Here it doesn’t matter what they do.
With Verizon, my doubts came from all of the reporting that’s happened on rural broadband funding. A lot of the companies, including Verizon, essentially took the money and ran without doing all of the work (from my understanding).
In concerns such as this, the process matters. If we don't follow it this time, then why follow next time or the time after? Then, if this rule or that law doesn't matter, then do any of them matter?
I think people would have been more comfortable if they decided to send it out to bid again - not great since it was already awarded, but at least going back through the public process.
There’s also very little information on who else bid for this contract that Verizon got. How do we know it wasn’t corrupt to begin with, especially with Biden engaging in lawfare against Musk and doing bizarre things like excluding him from EV summits? The entire FAA modernization plan looks corrupt - everyone else that got contracts are random unknown companies. I bet they have ties back to some congressman.
If we think that, isn't the solution to reopen the bidding with more transparency, rather than hand it to the guy who just so happens to both be in charge of the team pushing for this and owns the company the new contract is awarded to?
Your replacing "maybe this was corrupt", with 'this is blatantly and obviously corrupt"
If Starlink is actually "very likely to be better for taxpayers" it should have no problem going through the normal bidding process competing with other vendors.
If the contract was made fairly and in good faith, cancelling it would be bad for contract law precedence in the new administration.
I take contract law over advancement in technology in this case.
The enabling technology is constellations in low orbit and SpaceX isn't the only one anymore.
Once a proper government is in place, prosecute them all.
Not much more to say, really. There's blatant conflict of interest going on, but I guess we're way past that. Four next years is going to be a non-stop firehose of grift, good thing they won't even bother to hide it.
I like DOGE's stated objectives. I like SpaceX, and Starlink. They probably ARE a better choice than Verizon. It doesn't matter.
That being said, do I think that bankers and defense contractors and tech companies and oil execs etc have not bought their way into similarish positions of influence for the last many decades? Probably. But Elon's power at the moment feels far less bounded and far more arbitrary.
It does matter, imo. You don't want planes to lose communication with base. Satellite has its faults and his ISP has only been around for five years.
The text has a better description: "a SpaceX-led team within the FAA is reportedly recommending it go to Starlink"
As of February 27, 2025, reports indicate the FAA is considering canceling this contract and potentially shifting the work to Starlink, a SpaceX subsidiary owned by Elon Musk.
The FAA has not finalized this decision, stating "no decisions have been made" about the Verizon contract.
Currently, the FAA is testing three Starlink terminals: one in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and two at non-safety-critical sites in Alaska.
Elon Musk has claimed the existing Verizon system (though later corrected to an L3Harris system) is failing rapidly, posing risks to air travelers, and that Starlink is providing terminals "at no cost to the taxpayer on an emergency basis." The FAA has not publicly confirmed this risk assessment.
SpaceX employees are working within FAA facilities, assisting with technology upgrades, amid a broader Trump administration effort to modernize the agency.
The process to unwind a federal contract and reassign it typically requires a competitive bidding process or justification under specific legal exceptions (e.g., national security or urgent public interest), which has not been publicly detailed in this case.
https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/an...
why did you vote for these corrupt clowns?
it seems like US govt always either 180s from the previous president, or morphs into it's last enemy, in one way or another.
Osama, Obama
Russian Oligarchy, American Oligarchy
I almost expect a Putinesque invasion of a 'threatening' nation, maybe Cuba, or somewhere around the south-east-asian sea (the so-called south-china sea), or maybe rotten Denmark if they won't give up Greenland.
Banana republic kleptocracy will not help America.
Since then, there have been many efforts and many more billions spent. I'm sure all of these efforts went through the proper channels, etc, but all that has shown is that (a) FAA has no clue how to manage these contracts, and (b) the normal way of doing this absolutely doesn't work.
In contrast, this is how civil infrastructure used to get done in the US:
https://www.inventionandtech.com/content/antique-machines-yo...
Elon seems to be the only person really performing at this level anymore in this space.
Paying $3 per passenger for air traffic control seems insane.
The whole scheme should be costing more like 0.1 cents per passenger.
Start from that price, and then figure out what service you can offer with that money.
$800k should pay for a flight planning/replanning website made by one dev in a few months, and half an on-call rotation to man a helpline.
I say this not to attack you personally, but because I can't think of any other way to describe this idea (and I do realize that this does not contribute to a high quality discussion)...
Approaching something as vital and complicated as air traffic safety by saying, "I will only take the services I can get for some completely arbitrary amount of money," is utterly fucking stupid.
I don't know where you get the idea that this is enough money. It's not, it's absurdly low, and "half an on-call" to stop airplanes from crashing when your Node.js app crashes sounds more like a joke than a serious proposal.
I realize I'm piling on, but do you really believe that ATC comms just tracks flight plans? Or are you just trolling?