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Starlink to take over $2.4B contract to overhaul air traffic control comms
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- taylodl 2y agoOh, there was an RFP to award the contract? No? Then it's corruption.
- londons_explore 2y agoEven with the proper contract awarding process, corruption is widespread. Decisions made at lunches and then the contract award process skewed to award the correct person, at some insane markup over real market prices for the same service. The process is unfixable. Instead we should just look at a teams total cost and total achievement every year, and if the money they've spent doesn't look good value for money, we give them a bad performance review and their government career will be tricky to repair. That is a far stronger incentive to get the most out of taxpayer money than ever stricter, yet super easy to game, anti corruption measures.
- bumby 2y agoUnfortunately this doesn’t work either. Contracting is risk adverse and tries to avoid legal battles at all costs so even bad reviews often get scrubbed and edited until they look glowing. The risk adverse nature of the govt needs to be fixed before the incentives align.
- xnx 2y agoDo any governments employ a competitive approach to awarding contracts that isn't winner-take-all? If there were a way to build an ATC system utilizing both Verizon and Starlink we might get the benefits of price competition and redundancy.
- Jtsummers 2y agoYes. The US does this with some larger programs ("systems of systems") if the components are sufficiently distinct. An aircraft? Not so much. A comms system? Absolutely, if it's not sold as one complete system. For instance, radios might be contracted to multiple vendors with the intent to drive down cost. It's not universally done, though. It depends on how the program office(s) involved decide to run things. EDIT: To expand. Look at space systems. The ground stations are not tied to specific space systems (though some space systems develop their own ground networks), that is a separate program from the satellites and SOCs. There is no one "space program". And even for a particular satellite system the SOC may be under a separate contract vehicle than the satellite itself.
- londons_explore 2y agoIsn't the logical way to do that for a contractor to make a bid intending to use multiple subcontractors to provide a better service than any one contractor could provide alone?
- Jtsummers 2y agoThat is one way it's done, yes.
- bumby 2y ago>An aircraft? Not so much. NASA did this with the commercial crew program, awarding to both SpaceX and Boeing to reduce risk.
- Jtsummers 2y agoRight, that's similar to the radio example I gave (multiple vendors so that there was no single point of failure, it mitigated risk and, in theory, reduces cost by introducing competition). What I meant by aircraft though was that for a specific aircraft, it'll be run by a specific contractor for all or nearly all its subcomponents. Though there could be exceptions. See the way that heavies (cargo, AWACS, and the like) are given multiple missions and some of the mission specific components may be separate programs rather than executed by the prime for the aircraft. But you won't have the government contract for the engine and the airframe separately. Though you also have that done for aircraft. The F-35 was selected among several aircraft that were being developed by various contractors as the one to move forward as the JSF. This is where the lifecycle of a program comes into play. In the R&D stages you'll see multiple options quite commonly because they want to compete different vendors. Eventually it whittles down to one for things like aircraft to move forward. Though, using the JSF as an example, maybe they should select multiple. LM were the geniuses that thought you could increase software productivity by hiring more programmers and having them work in shifts.
- omnivore 2y agoeven conceding that, letting one guy decide it using executive power is problematic. And illegal
- skeeter2020 2y agoThis doesn't matter. By definition, the premise "I will step aside if there's a conflict" is itself a conflict of interest.
- sebazzz 2y agoEven with an RFP it can be corruption. The RFP can be written so that only a single specific vendor can deliver cost effectively.
- Ancapistani 2y agoProbably. Given the systemic corruption elsewhere, I can’t summon anger about this until I can verify if the utility is necessary and uniquely provided by Starlink. If so, then this is just bad optics. If not, it should be aggressively fought.
- bumby 2y agoIf it were “uniquely provided” by Starlink, how do you think Verizon got the award?
- Ancapistani 2y agoWere they unable to fulfill the contract? As I said, I don’t have the full context here.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bumby 2y agoIt’s a 15 year contract awarded in 2023 so it may be too early to tell. The strongest public claims that Verizon isn’t capable comes from their competitor so those claims should probably be taken with a boulder of salt until more information is made available.
- inemesitaffia 2y agoThis has nothing to do with Verizon. All these arguments (and this article) come from a place of ignorance)
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- esarbe 2y ago[flagged]
- londons_explore 2y ago0.8 billion people fly in the US per year. Paying $3 per passenger for air traffic control seems insane. The whole scheme should be costing more like 0.1 cents per passenger. Start from that price, and then figure out what service you can offer with that money. $800k should pay for a flight planning/replanning website made by one dev in a few months, and half an on-call rotation to man a helpline.
- jjulius 2y ago>Start from that price, and then figure out what service you can offer with that money. I say this not to attack you personally, but because I can't think of any other way to describe this idea (and I do realize that this does not contribute to a high quality discussion)... Approaching something as vital and complicated as air traffic safety by saying, "I will only take the services I can get for some completely arbitrary amount of money," is utterly fucking stupid.
- mnky9800n 2y agoI didn’t find this rude. I would prefer to not die on an airplane.
- cactacea 2y agoI'm glad clowns like you aren't in government. Oh wait...
- SR2Z 2y agoDude, $800k won't even pay for a new piston single. That's like three ATC salaries. I don't know where you get the idea that this is enough money. It's not, it's absurdly low, and "half an on-call" to stop airplanes from crashing when your Node.js app crashes sounds more like a joke than a serious proposal.
- lm28469 2y agoI'll be the last do defend this project but it's not like they'll spend 2.8b every single year
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- thecopy 2y agoLuckily Elon said he would step away if he thought there would be conflicts of interests - nothing to see here.
- verzali 2y agoThis is naked corruption. It's way worse than just stealing the contract, it essentially means Starlink will get a free antenna on every airplane in the country (at taxpayer expense?) and will then have the airlines as captive customers. Musk is going to make way more than $2bn out of this.
- gruez 2y ago[flagged]
- jjulius 2y ago>He also claimed... You'll forgive a significantly large body of people for not being willing to trust a man who has "also claimed" a ton of things that have turned out to not be true.
- loanedempathy 2y agoAh hell, that predicate applies to every congressperson anybody here has voted for. Let's not pretend like we as a nation suddenly give a shit about integrity, capability, or neutrality.
- hn_acker 2y agoLet's not pretend like every president and congressperson has the same track record for corruption and hypocrisy. I don't need to "suddenly give a shit about integrity, capability, or neutrality" to wonder why a particular president lets a billionare give unhired people access to treasury data, lie about "read-only access", redirect earmarked contracts to the billionaire's companies, and pretend that Elon Musk does not have anything to do with DOGE or firing decisions, or to question why certain legislators are telling citizens that "nobody should bellyache" about the unconstitutional actions committed by DOGE and Elon Musk with Trump's permission.
- inemesitaffia 2y agoThe terminals can be provided free, then you pay for service. It's not unusual for providers to own the CPE.
- tomohawk 2y agoIn the mid 90s, I recall talking to some of the people working on the current scheme to modernize ATC. This was the 3rd or 4th attempt, and billions had already been spent. Since then, there have been many efforts and many more billions spent. I'm sure all of these efforts went through the proper channels, etc, but all that has shown is that (a) FAA has no clue how to manage these contracts, and (b) the normal way of doing this absolutely doesn't work. In contrast, this is how civil infrastructure used to get done in the US: https://www.inventionandtech.com/content/antique-machines-your-life-depends-1 https://www.inventionandtech.com/content/antique-machines-yo... Elon seems to be the only person really performing at this level anymore in this space.
- NitpickLawyer 2y ago[flagged]
- jjulius 2y agoThe difference between those previous contracts and this particular move is in how he/his companies earned those contracts. If they followed standard procedures for the others but not for this one, then yes, one could argue this is corruption.
- scarab92 2y ago[flagged]
- jjulius 2y ago>RFP or not, these contracts are spoken for long before anything is put on paper. Can you please provide some examples of this occurring?
- levi-turner 2y agoFor background, RFPs are not value neutral. It is not uncommon for customers who have a preferred vendor to shape the RFP to fit in a more natural way to the preferred vendor. To use a simplified example: you want a web server vendor and only IIS and Apache exist. If you have a RFP requirement that the service runs on Linux, then you have a RFP but your requirements have pre-selected the vendor which can achieve the objectives. This is hard to catch from the outside, but focus on ultra specific requirements which seem relatively arbitrary (Linux vs. Windows isn't arbitrary, but the example is super simplified for illustrative purposes). I am also curious about examples, but as someone from the vendor side, I'll be the first to admit that if the purchasing group has any semblance of intelligence, you can easily hide these biases. The bias only is obvious if you are in the industry and grok the subtle nuances of the capabilities.
- engineer_22 2y agoWhen you want to buy something but you don't know how to get what you want you call around to the vendors. They tell you about the products they're representing, and you figure out what you like best. When you put out your solicitation you confine it to products that narrowly match the description of the actual product you want (without naming it, that would be sole source which is different). This is achieved by naming features that are patented or otherwise IP protected, therefore excluding competing products. Sometimes if you're sloppy you can get stuck with a competing product and then you've got a problem on your hands. If you're not worried about price this is a great way to get what you want. But it can mean a 20%+ cost premium, depending on the niche and how aggressive the salesman is.
- josefritzishere 2y agoMusk is self-awarding contracts? The government has fallen.
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoAnother Verge [dupe]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43201750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43201750
- pyrophane 2y agoOh, wow, the SpaceX team inside the FAA actually pushed to have the contract, already awarded to Verizon, canceled and given instead to Starlink. No attempt whatever there to avoid the obvious conflict of interest.
- Hikikomori 2y agoGoing forward I think we can assume that conflict of interest doesn't exist anymore. No DEI but they'll replace it with nepotism and full on corruption.
- slantedview 2y agoConflict of interest isn’t a strong enough description. This is corruption.
- matwood 2y agoThe genius move by Trump is doing full on corruption out in the open leaves people confused. Full corruption, foreign brides/influence, blatant political favors are the norm now. I remember when the MAGAs complained about Hilary's emails and Hunter on the board of some company. Now we have a full on corruption out in the open and no one gives a shit.
- trilbyglens 2y agoThis is the true secret of American government, though. We do everything that every other corrupt government does, except we've managed to legalize it.
- mistrial9 2y agothe airplane market is juicy, but "just wait" for the US Postal Service privatizations.. that will be real money
- thrance 2y agoThe new administration just cut 400 jobs at the FAA [1], and now Musk will directly pocket the "savings" to "work" on some bullshit useless tech. When Musk talks "waste and bloat", he means public money that doesn't end up in his pocket. As a result, air traffic is noticeably more dangerous, and many lost their livelihoods in these increasingly uncertain times, just to make the wealthiest man on Earth a bit more wealthy. The "Fell for it Again Award" goes to... [1] https://apnews.com/article/faa-firings-trump-doge-safety-airlines-27390c6a7aac58063652302df5a243d3 https://apnews.com/article/faa-firings-trump-doge-safety-air...
- BurningFrog 2y agoIt's actually legal for FAA to fire it's employees.
- luddit3 2y agoNo one said it wasn't. It was not legal the way it was done.
- BurningFrog 2y agoWhen I commented the post said "illegally". Glad I could help :) What was illegal about how it was done?
- engineer_22 2y agoThis quote from your link: > FAA Administrator Sean Duffy said over the weekend that no air traffic controllers or critical safety personnel were cut.
- thrance 2y agoThere's more to air safety than air traffic controllers...
- engineer_22 2y ago
- TrackerFF 2y agoBanana republic shit. Not much more to say, really. There's blatant conflict of interest going on, but I guess we're way past that. Four next years is going to be a non-stop firehose of grift, good thing they won't even bother to hide it.
- nickthegreek 2y agoDont worry, the Corpo Wolves will battle out in court. Us lambs have nothing to worry about.
- profile53 2y agoWhile I don’t like the way it is handled, I’m going to be a contrarian here and say this could be a good thing. Previously, the contract was awarded to Verizon at the same price. I have more faith in SpaceX’s ability to deliver than Verizon and if starlink antennas are on every plane, aircraft internet will likely be better overall as a side effect. Please convince me why this view is incorrect, I am open to listen.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- engineer_22 2y ago[flagged]
- thrance 2y agoYes, do just dismiss any legitimate grievances others may have as pointless outrage. You wouldn't want to engage in wrongthink after all.
- engineer_22 2y agoThere is plenty of outrage to go around, I'll have my portion after everyone else has had their fill.
- janice1999 2y agoYou're making those assertions with no absolutely no data though. In a sane, non-corrupt system a trusted third party with recognised industry experience would assess the contract, what has been agreed to and what been delivered and make an evaluation based on the cost, risk, timetables etc. None of that happened here. It's just naked corruption.
- jesterson 2y agoWhat you are talking about is a pure theory and never exist in real world. Start with trusted 3rd party - trusted by who? Starlink technologically can provide better connectivity in terms of speed and reliability compared to Verizon (can doesn’t mean it will of course). So there is some credibility to the decision. But of course populace prefer to focus on flamboyant personalities instead of “based on cost, risk, timetables” ain’t it?
- jacknews 2y agolol, you guys in the US are so screwed why did you vote for these corrupt clowns? it seems like US govt always either 180s from the previous president, or morphs into it's last enemy, in one way or another. Osama, Obama Russian Oligarchy, American Oligarchy I almost expect a Putinesque invasion of a 'threatening' nation, maybe Cuba, or somewhere around the south-east-asian sea (the so-called south-china sea), or maybe rotten Denmark if they won't give up Greenland.
- doublerabbit 2y agoAnd the country that you reside in has never had clowns of corruption? I doubt it.
- taeric 2y agoI'm genuinely curious on what defense of this move folks can offer? Seems like one of the more blatantly corrupt moves I've seen in a long time.
- inemesitaffia 2y agohttps://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ang/offices/tc/library/storyboard/detailedwebpages/fens.html https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/an... it's a misleading article and it falls under RTIR
- Someone1234 2y agoIs the "Moving fast and breaking things" attitude commonly associated with these types of companies compatible with ATC? While I acknowledge their success in space, a LOT of guardrails/regulation were placed upon them to assure safe progress. Now they're both running the regulatory agency while also providing the end-product, which may mean faster progress but less safety overall. Air travel is, generally, safe. The US has an issue with low staffing levels in ATC, and while automated systems have helped, the workload is still too high. It will likely be years before a Starlink product would come online, so staffing levels need to be addressed in the near-term.
- bumby 2y ago>While I acknowledge their success in space Not to mention the early model was built on govt contracts because the govt was the only institution capable of shouldering the risk of an unproven space vendor. Not saying that’s a bad thing, just that the success of SpaceX and the govt were tightly coupled.
- Ancapistani 2y agoInterestingly, it looks like the “BEAD program” - a rural broadband initiative was allocated more funding ($42b) than SpaceX and Tesla combined ($37b). That last number includes loans, too. I chose that example in particular because Starlink has done more for rural broadband access than everything else the federal government has done combined.
- bumby 2y agoI agree Starlink is poised to be very successful at providing high speed internet to rural areas. But that doesn’t negate the point that it required the govt to do so because SpaceX would not exist if it didn’t get high risk govt contracts. Also, I wouldn’t compare it to terrestrial internet unless you advocate it being a regulated utility in the same way, which I doubt Musk or investors would want. Different rules, different constraints.
- 2y ago
- gtirloni 2y agoI see a lot of pessimism here which makes me think Elon Musk is right when he says they are just having some fun and people lack a sense of humor. Cheer up, people! Geez. /s
- justanotheratom 2y agoHere are the facts regarding the situation with Starlink, the FAA, and the Verizon contract as of February 28, 2025: The FAA awarded Verizon a $2.4 billion contract in 2023 to upgrade its air traffic control communication system, known as the FAA Enterprise Network Services (FENS) program. As of February 27, 2025, reports indicate the FAA is considering canceling this contract and potentially shifting the work to Starlink, a SpaceX subsidiary owned by Elon Musk. The FAA has not finalized this decision, stating "no decisions have been made" about the Verizon contract. Currently, the FAA is testing three Starlink terminals: one in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and two at non-safety-critical sites in Alaska. Elon Musk has claimed the existing Verizon system (though later corrected to an L3Harris system) is failing rapidly, posing risks to air travelers, and that Starlink is providing terminals "at no cost to the taxpayer on an emergency basis." The FAA has not publicly confirmed this risk assessment. SpaceX employees are working within FAA facilities, assisting with technology upgrades, amid a broader Trump administration effort to modernize the agency. The process to unwind a federal contract and reassign it typically requires a competitive bidding process or justification under specific legal exceptions (e.g., national security or urgent public interest), which has not been publicly detailed in this case.
- inemesitaffia 2y agoThese aren't the facts sorry. The program is still going to Verizon, but there's a transition from TDM to IP called RTRI. That's where Starlink comes in. It's run by L3Harris, not SpaceX. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ang/offices/tc/library/storyboard/detailedwebpages/fens.html https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/an...
- ralusek 2y agoIt kind of doesn't matter if this is the best choice or not. If Elon wants to occupy the position he does in the government, he needs to remove his companies from the pool of government contracts. I like DOGE's stated objectives. I like SpaceX, and Starlink. They probably ARE a better choice than Verizon. It doesn't matter. That being said, do I think that bankers and defense contractors and tech companies and oil execs etc have not bought their way into similarish positions of influence for the last many decades? Probably. But Elon's power at the moment feels far less bounded and far more arbitrary.
- doublerabbit 2y agoVerizon has a valid solid network when you're outside of the consumer network. In the business world, Verizon is actually pretty decent and very established. Verizon business is very different to Verizon consumer. It does matter, imo. You don't want planes to lose communication with base. Satellite has its faults and his ISP has only been around for five years.
- tfandango 2y agoBest source I've found for exactly what this is was reddit, here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ATC/comments/1izjg2m/starlinkverizon_news_clarification/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ATC/comments/1izjg2m/starlinkverizo... for a system called FENS here: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/cinp/fens https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/cinp/fens
- inemesitaffia 2y agoAnd here's a video https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ang/offices/tc/library/storyboard/detailedwebpages/fens.html https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/an... Starlink is relevant to RTIR.
- TheChaplain 2y agoCollect everything. Talks, notes, contacts, emails, copies of contracts, whatever data is possible. Once a proper government is in place, prosecute them all.
- BurningFrog 2y agoThe HN headline is really misleading. The text has a better description: "a SpaceX-led team within the FAA is reportedly recommending it go to Starlink"
- ossm1db 2y ago"Musk orders FAA to give him $2.4 billion" would be more accurate.
- KevinMS 2y agoPut aside the Musk hatred. Maybe the company that has 8k satellites in orbit and can bring internet to anywhere in the world, is a better fit than a cell phone company?
- rasz 2y agoCan a rogue nation across the globe launch one small rocket to disrupt critical infrastructure based on cell towers?
- zfg 2y agoWoo! Blatant self-dealing. Hardcore! Banana republic kleptocracy will not help America.