Iran's crackdown on dissidents poses one of the toughest security tests yet for Elon Musk's Starlink, which, since its introduction during the war in Ukraine, has served as a lifeline against state internet shutdowns.
SpaceX, which owns Starlink, earlier this week made the satellite service free for Iranians, putting itself at the center of another geopolitical flashpoint and pitting a team of US-based engineers against a regional power that has satellite jammers and spoofing tactics, activists, analysts and researchers told Reuters.
How SpaceX resists Iranian attacks on its most profitable line of business will be closely watched by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies that use Starlink and its military variant, Starshield, as well as by China, whose nascent satellite internet constellations are set to rival Starlink in the coming years. With SpaceX considering an IPO this year, the situation in Iran also represents a notable demonstration of Starlink to investors.
"We're in this strange, early part of the history of space-delivered communications, where SpaceX is the only real service provider at this scale," John Plumb, the former Pentagon space policy chief in President Joe Biden's administration, told the British agency.
"And these repressive regimes think they can still shut down communications, but I think the day is coming when that simply won't be possible," he added.
Protesters send footage of repression via Starlink
Thousands of people protesting against Iran's clerical rule have reportedly been killed in the past seven days, while Tehran's order to restrict communications makes it difficult to see the full extent of the violent crackdown on dissent.
Starlink, which is more difficult for Iran to manipulate than cable and cell phone base station networks, has become crucial for documenting events on the ground.
Raha Bahreini, Iran researcher at Amnesty International, said they had verified dozens of videos from Iran, including footage showing protesters being killed or injured by Iranian forces, and believed almost all of them came from people who had access to Starlink. She added, however, that ongoing communications restrictions were making it difficult for human rights organizations to communicate with people in Iran as they tried to assess the scale of the violence.
Starlink is banned in Iran, but tens of thousands of terminals may have been smuggled into the country, although it is unclear how many are in use, according to Holistic Resilience, a US nonprofit that helped deliver Starlink terminals to Iranians and says it is working with SpaceX to monitor what it describes as Iranian attempts to disrupt the system.
Consumer Starlink terminals are rectangular antenna panels that come in two sizes - one is about the size of a pizza box, and the other, a smaller "mobile" one, is the size of a laptop.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to Al Jazeera on Monday, said the internet was shut down "after we faced terrorist operations and realized that the orders were coming from outside the country."
Jammers and fake GPS signals
Starlink, the first mass-scale internet constellation of its kind from space, has emerged as a key means of communication in wartime and remote areas. The network, which brought SpaceX $15 billion in revenue by 2024, has increased the geopolitical power of Elon Musk, who in 2022 took control of how and where the system is used among Ukrainian troops fighting Russian forces.
About 10.000 Starlink satellites in low orbit, which "race" above user terminals at an orbital speed of about 27.360 km/h, make their signals much more difficult to locate and jam than traditional satellite systems, designed with one larger satellite fixed above a certain territory.
Iran is likely using satellite jammers to disrupt Starlink signals, Holistic Resilience and other experts say. Iran also appears to be resorting to so-called “spoofing,” or broadcasting fake GPS signals to confuse and disable Starlink terminals, Nariman Gharib, an Iranian opposition activist and independent cyber-espionage researcher based in Britain, told Reuters.
GPS signal spoofing is wreaking havoc on Starlink terminals and slowing down internet speeds, said Garib, who analyzed data from a terminal inside Iran.
"You might be able to send text messages, but forget about video calls," he said.
Iran is trying to locate Starlink terminals
Although Starlink is not licensed to operate in Iran, Elon Musk has repeatedly confirmed its presence on his social network X, fueling years of efforts by the Iranian government to oppose the service. During protests over the death of Mahsa Amini in December 2022, Musk announced that nearly 100 Starlink terminals were active in the country.
Following the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June, the Iranian parliament passed a law banning the use of Starlink, imposing severe penalties for those who use or distribute the unlicensed technology, Iranian state media reported.
Iran has also used diplomatic channels, calling on a panel within the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union last year to force the United States and Norway - where Starlink is internationally registered - to block the service.
At a meeting in July, Iran told the board that the use of Starlink in the country was illegal and said that the “attacking country” deployed the terminals on drones during the recent attack.
Iran informed the committee in November that it was also having trouble locating and disabling the terminals.
Bonus video:
