UK Discloses Nearly $40 Million in Spending on SpaceX Starlink and Starshield

Britain's Ministry of Defence disclosed, in response to a Reuters freedom-of-information request, that it has spent nearly $40 million on SpaceX satellite services — about £13 million ($17.6 million) on Starshield, SpaceX's hardened military/intelligence variant of Starlink, and £16.5 million on standard Starlink — making the UK the first country outside the US to publicly confirm adopting Starshield. The MoD operates roughly 1,000 Starshield terminals and 500 Starlink terminals; it began using Starlink in mid-2022, moved operational military traffic to Starshield airtime in 2024 after SpaceX restricted plain Starlink to morale, welfare, recreation and training use, and bought its first dedicated Starshield terminals in 2025. Starshield pricing in Britain runs £5,500/month for 5TB of data or £25,000/month unlimited (plus £4,000-£7,000 per terminal), versus £1,830/month for 2TB on business Starlink. New Zealand is separately testing Starshield, and the US government alone has awarded SpaceX over $6 billion in multi-year Starshield contracts.