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Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa. - Starlink is a satellite service offered by SpaceX. Its goal is to provide very high-speed communication that uses energy from thousands of low Earth orbit satellites. Within the U.S. military, it is used as a tool for maintaining and ensuring reliability. It allows service members to have internet access in isolated or high-risk areas that they would not typically be able to access.
The benefits of Starlink are to allow troops to share other data, communicate clearly, and coordinate operations more efficiently and effectively on the battlefield.
The 28th ECAB has begun using this system to maintain operational connectivity despite the challenges that come with accessing new equipment. With the legacy satellite terminals undergoing maintenance, the team faced the challenge of finding an innovative solution to ensure continued participation in a critical division-wide communications exercise.
“Whether it’s defending the homeland or in future combat operations, all while significantly increasing our survivability in large-scale combat operations, by minimizing our footprint to quickly move,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 David Galvin.
The solution was to adapt commercial Starshield terminals to establish secure, encrypted military communications over a commercial network, a method that had never been used before in the division. This breakthrough provided reliable, secure data and voice services necessary for the Brigade to integrate into the exercise and accomplish all training objectives. This achievement marks a historic first, leveraging commercial for encrypted tactical communication. Not only for the 28th Infantry Division, but also for the Pennsylvania National Guard. This places our unit at the forefront of technological innovations.
According to Maj. Charles McClurg, “This technology makes our Brigade more expeditionary and responsive to any mission.”
Starlink enhances operational flexibility, supports command and control systems, and improves connectivity for U.S. forces worldwide. To accelerate success, they actively collaborated with and incorporated best practices from pioneering units in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps
| Date Taken: | 04.11.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 05.05.2026 21:40 |
| Story ID: | 562518 |
| Location: | FORT INDIANTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA, US |
| Web Views: | 5 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Orbit to Operations: Starlink’s role with the 28th ECAB, by SGT Jessica Barb, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
