Starlink outage disrupted Navy drone tests off California

April 17, 2026

Summary

Navy drone tests off California were disrupted by Starlink outages, underscoring Pentagon reliance on SpaceX systems.

Why this matters

The report highlights operational risks tied to the military’s growing dependence on one commercial satellite network for communications. It also shows how outages in widely used private infrastructure can affect national security programs.

A global Starlink outage last August disrupted U.S. Navy tests of unmanned vessels off the California coast, leaving about two dozen surface drones without communications for nearly an hour, according to internal Navy documents reviewed by Reuters and a person familiar with the matter.

The vessels were part of a program intended to expand U.S. military options in a conflict with China. Reuters reported the outage was one of several Starlink-related disruptions that left operators unable to connect with autonomous boats.

In April 2025, during Navy tests in California involving unmanned boats and aerial drones, Starlink struggled to maintain a stable connection under heavy data demand, according to a Navy safety report reviewed by Reuters. “Starlink reliance exposed limitations under multiple-vehicle load,” the report said. The report also cited issues with radios from Silvus and a network system from Viasat.

In the weeks before the August outage, other Navy tests were disrupted by intermittent Starlink connection problems. The causes were not immediately clear.

The Navy, Pentagon, and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment about the drone tests or SpaceX’s work with the Navy. Pentagon Chief Information Officer Kirsten Davies said the “Department leverages multiple, robust, resilient systems for its broad network.”

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President Donald Trump said Thursday that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, a pause that could affect efforts to extend a separate ceasefire between Iran, the United States, and Israel.

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France and the United Kingdom were set to chair a meeting Friday of about 40 nations on protecting shipping through the strategic waterway, which typically carries about 20% of the world’s oil.

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