I've seen several takes on SpaceX's new Starshield service. From a Canadian space perspective Daniel Sax (founder of Canadian Space Mining Corporation) writes
@SpaceX decides it also wants to own the Earth Observation market and announces Starshield. Things are getting a whole lot more interesting in LEO. https://t.co/YOjqMeBwv2
— Daniel Sax 🚀 (@dansax) December 3, 2022
Such a take compares favourably to Apple's playbook. Rarely entering new areas, Apple focuses on being an effective and profitable fast follower, taking the lion's share of the profits in a category that others establish.
A second take comes from Space News, imagining that this is a brand extension of Starlink focused on serving U.S. military and national security interests. In 2022, Starlink proved its mettle in Ukraine where it provided a significant military advantage. The company will benefit from increased desire among official agencies for secure communications, remote sensing, and space surveillance payloads that can be rapidly deployed. 1
Wait! Are We a Charity?
Another perspective relates the offering to Musk's failed peace proposal. In October, he suggested a negotiated settlement that drew the ire from many sides intent on keeping the conflict going.
Given the resistance, he then suggested that the government should pay for the Starlink services they were receiving for free. This was also received poorly, especially among the hawks that populate the mainstream media outlets.
That dude is not just a “condition of anonymity” spineless coward, he’s also an ignorant fool. Starlink was directly requested by the Ukraine government, as it was the only thing that worked.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2022
Eventually, Musk pulled back and offered to continue providing the service for free.
The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2022
Now that Starlink has abundantly demonstrated its utility to military players, the company creates a paid service that for that segment. This is not a mistake, but an excellent entrepreneurial move to capture all the value in a product/service. If Starlink is to fund Elon's vision of populating Mars, this is terrific business judo, using the clients' demand to forward your goals. That it happens to be profitable revenge for the way certain militaries treat his gift is certainly just a coincidence.
Learn more: Canada's answer to Starlink/Starshield is Spacebridge, a Quebec-based company specializing in high-end, enterprise grade broadband communications.
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Erwin, S. (2022, December 3). SpaceX rolls out new business line focused on military satellite services. SpaceNews. https://spacenews.com/spacex-rolls-out-new-business-line-focused-on-military-satellite-services/ ↩