The U.S. Pentagon's advanced technology testing operation involving 24 unmanned naval drones off the coast of California became lost in the Pacific Ocean when the Starlink internet connection suddenly dropped, leaving them drifting aimlessly without knowing what to do.
According to Reuters, the internet connection was cut off for nearly an hour during this test, and those ships operating on autopilot lost contact with the command center and drifted as they wished.
Although Starlink claims their service is reliable up to 99.9 percent, there was also a major outage worldwide in August 2025.
"When many vehicles are connected simultaneously and commanded, this demonstrates that Starlink's performance has limitations," according to a report.
Because the Pentagon is increasingly relying on Starlink for their operations, experts are concerned that such frequent connection failures could become a major risk in future warfare scenarios.
Interestingly, while approximately 67 percent of SpaceX's 2025 revenue comes from this Starlink service, such critical tests show that it cannot yet be relied upon.
ref: Fossbytes
