Realities and Challenges of Using Starlink on Drones and Vehicles

What drone developers and manufacturers should know about working with Starlink while in motion?

In one of the previous publications, it was already mentioned how Starlink changed the paradigm of war, enabling the battlefield to generate massive data streams from any component or actor. But Starlink actually changed much more – the satellite communication industry itself became different. And above all, the mobile component – connection while in motion – has fundamentally changed. Moreover, the effect of these changes is still poorly understood.

We will not currently consider the economic and other aspects of changes in the satellite communication industry. This material is precisely about the purely practical aspects in all scenarios of using Starlink terminals while in motion. We will examine the most important aspects, highlight the most common mistakes, and identify the most useful advice.

The material is intended primarily for drone developers and manufacturers (UGVs, USVs, UAVs) and other relevant equipment.

This public material, of course, does not include details on sensitive and classified topics related to the use of Starlink on the battlefield in Ukraine. Quite a few topics will remain “behind the scenes”. But it will allow all interested parties to form an understanding of the experience and competencies available to its authors, which may be important and useful to developers, manufacturers, and integrators of Starlink in a very wide range of scenarios.

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• Starlink Mobility Foundation

• The “Pitfalls” of Starlink Mobility

• Realities and Challenges of Use – Practice and Experience from Modern Warfare

  • Road Transport

  • Railway

  • Maritime

  • Aviation

  • UAVs

  • USVs

  • UGVs

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Starlink Mobility Foundation

High-speed network access while in motion is not new for many. But the concept embedded by the SpaceX team in Starlink has significantly expanded the boundaries of its accessibility. Both technically and geographically. However, the most important factor was the price affordability and simplicity of using unified Starlink equipment.

We will not spend time here on yet another repetition of the principles of operation of Starlink and similar systems. We have done this in many previous publications, including a fairly detailed analytical comparison of Starlink, OneWeb, and Amazon Kuiper.

Starlink satellite communication terminals and the entire network were developed from the beginning for mobile use (OTM = On-The-Move). In the case of a constellation of many thousands of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, the high angular velocity of each satellite across the sky requires fairly precise and effective signal aiming from both the terminal and the satellites in real-time.

Thus, every Starlink terminal must solve fairly complex “cosmic geometry” problems in real-time based on information from its own sensors (coordinates and orientation of the AESA) and data from the network. Correspondingly, the satellites, in turn, must ensure the appropriate concentration of their own AESA beams according to current needs. Not to mention the routing of ultra-high-speed data streams among themselves and to ground stations. And all this while in motion, where the travel speed can significantly exceed the speed of sound (for aircraft).

That is why SpaceX relied from the outset on technological solutions such as:

• Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) – allowed to dispense with mechanical tracking and aiming. And the beam-switching algorithm embedded from the beginning allowed for the seamless realization of continuous connections later on;

• Software-Defined (SD) architecture allowed for the flexible adaptation of all components, from satellite to terminal, through all evolutionary network change cycles;

• Software-defined network stack with centralized control of routing, balancing, and QoS via an SDN core. This enables unified management of thousands of satellites and nodes, adapting data delivery routes in real-time;

• Integration of an array of sensors and computing power into the terminal, allowing it to react quickly to any changes in the terminal’s physical position and orientation (even during rocking on the water);

• Monoblock form factor, in a ruggedized casing, minimized issues with mounting, installation, and maintenance. It also allowed for the production of internal hardware in a unified monoboard design and unlocked the economic potential of production scaling;

• Laying the foundation with the latest network standards – DVB-S2X, their own improved implementation of SC-FDMA / OFDM using FEC / LDPC + BCH, etc., Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM / VCM), native IPv6 simultaneously with compatibility integration for IPv4, prioritizing the use of QUIC / HTTP-3 and DNS over HTTPS, etc... All this allowed adapting all elements of the network transport chain to the specifics of LEO operation and drastically minimizing communication latency;

• A fairly low satellite availability angle above the horizon (Starlink – ≈25°, other LEO systems ≈35-40°) significantly expanded communication accessibility for many scenarios regardless of AESA positioning;

• Beam Switching – the ability of the terminal to operate connections with multiple satellites simultaneously, which was implemented in July 2025, after reaching the appropriate saturation of the number of satellites in the constellation.

Of course, this is far from a complete list, and it does not include aspects of the design of the satellites and the constellation themselves. But in this article, our attention is focused on more practical aspects. Therefore, we will not dive too deep into the technology stack of Elon Musk’s first global satellite network on the planet. It is sufficient to emphasize that SpaceX specialists formed their technology stack from the beginning specifically for operation while in motion. This allowed them to avoid many “bottlenecks” that usually hinder the rapid development of traditional satellite communication operators.

Thus, SpaceX initially laid the foundation for operation while in motion in Starlink. And before considering the usage scenarios themselves, we need to understand the features of Starlink that directly affect its mobile use.

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The “Pitfalls” of Starlink Mobility