US spy satellites built by SpaceX send signals in the “wrong direction”

Image: A Starshield satellite from SpaceX’s website. Image credit: SpaceX. Article by Jon Brodkin. Ars Technica – November 14, 2025.

About 170 Starshield satellites built by SpaceX for the US government’s National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) have been sending signals in the wrong direction, a satellite researcher found. The SpaceX-built spy satellites are helping the NRO greatly expand its satellite surveillance capabilities, but the purpose of these signals is unknown. The signals are sent from space to Earth in a frequency band that’s allocated internationally for Earth-to-space and space-to-space transmissions. […]

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