SpaceX chairman, Elon Musk, announced yesterday that he will continue to fund the Starlink internet service in Ukraine, backing away from his calls yesterday for the US government to cover those costs.

On Friday, Elon Musk warned that SpaceX could not continue to fund the existing system indefinitely and send thousands of additional terminals.

SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon last month to say it could no longer cover the costs of the Ukraine service, CNN reported.

According to the television network, the company was asking the US Department of Defence to take over the funding for the use of Starlink by the Ukrainian government and its military, the cost of which is estimated at $400 million over the next 12 months.

Since the start of war in Ukraine, SpaceX has delivered thousands of terminals there that provide Internet connectivity through a constellation of satellites that form the Starlink network.

Thus, almost 25,000 terminals have been installed in the country to date. Elon Musk assures that with the exception of a “small percentage”, all the costs of the installation and maintenance of the Starlink terminals in Ukraine were borne by SpaceX.

The Starlink network helped to maintain internet connections in areas of Ukraine affected by the Russian military. As of June, about 15 percent of Ukraine’s existing internet infrastructure had been destroyed or damaged, according to authorities.

According to APA MPA, Starlink is also widely used by Ukrainian forces to calculate the trajectory of their missiles and geolocate their targets.

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