SpaceX has been awarded a US contract to expand its Starlink satellite service network in Ukraine.

As reported by Bloomberg, SpaceX has been awarded a Pentagon contract to expand Ukraine's access to a more secure, militarized version of its Starlink satellite network, as the country continues its war with Russia.

The contract will see the already 2,500 Starlink terminals deployed in the country gain access to Starshield.

Starshield is a classified and encrypted signal over Starlink that’s more difficult to hack into or jam. That number is in addition to 500 terminals previously connected to Starshield.

“A total of 3,000 terminals are provided service via the two contracts,” said a statement from the Space Systems Command’s Commercial Satellite Office to Bloomberg. The contracts share a common purpose “to facilitate Internet connectivity in Ukraine,” it said. “Both provide service into 2025.”

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, thousands of Starlink terminals were given to Ukraine, some of which were paid for by the US government and other governments. The service has helped to keep Ukrainians and the Ukrainian military connected during the war.

Bloomberg reports that the contract was awarded in August by the Biden Administration prior to Donald Trump's 2024 election victory.

Since winning the election, Trump has outlined his intention to end the war between Ukraine and Russia. Musk has been appointed as a key adviser to Trump.

Musk's position in Ukraine has been far from straightforward. Earlier this year, he was forced to deny widespread reports that Starlink has sold equipment to Russia.

While in October 2022, Musk said that SpaceX couldn't afford to "indefinitely" continue its support of providing Starlink terminals to the country, noting that it was losing money doing so.

He then swiftly reversed calls for the US government to fund the deployment in Ukraine.

The world's richest man posted on X at the time: "The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we'll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free."

The company had long claimed credit for the tens of thousands of Starlink dishes sent to Ukraine since the outset of Russia's invasion, and said that it had not received money for the deliveries.

However, despite these claims, it was revealed that USAID spent millions on buying thousands of terminals, while the governments of France and Poland also acquired thousands of the dishes.

Separately, it was reported last month that two Democratic senators asked the Pentagon and the Justice Department to investigate Musk's reported contacts with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials in recent years. 

Reuters reported that Sen. Jack Reed, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a top member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, wrote to the Defense Department, asking them to look into his reported contacts with Russia, and to determine whether this warranted a review of the federal government's contracts with SpaceX.

"These relationships between a well-known U.S. adversary and Mr. Musk, a beneficiary of billions of dollars in US government funding, pose serious questions regarding Mr. Musk's reliability as a government contractor and a clearance holder," the senators wrote.