WASHINGTON — During a recent desert test, soldiers discovered a practical, makeshift solution to keep Starlink ground terminals operational in extreme heat. Facing temperatures above 100 degrees in the Mojave Desert, some units found that the terminals were overheating, which significantly hampered their ability to transmit and receive data. Without contractor support on the ground, the service members improvised a fix using wet T-shirts.
Their straightforward method involved soaking T-shirts in water and draping them over the antennas to cool the equipment down.
“We did have a couple cases where things were overheating … but we see when you have commercial-first [tech], it’s not necessarily purely ruggedized, we see that we have some shortcomings in some of the technology’s ability just to handle the heat,” Maj. Gen. Patrick Ellis, commander of 4th Infantry Division (4ID), told reporters in July. “But we also found there’s some pretty basic ways for us to accommodate for the heat. Some soldiers figured out that by soaking a T-shirt in ice water, you can put on top of some of the antennas and cool them off enough for them to function. We may not always need to buy [a] hardened, boutique capability.”
The Starlink overheating incidents occurred in July during Project Convergence Capstone 6 at Fort Irwin. During this high-profile event, the 4th Infantry Division tested the limits of the Army’s Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) hardware and software under harsh, realistic conditions.
This test was a critical examination of the Army’s modern acquisition strategy, which prioritizes commercially available equipment for rapid fielding over traditional, custom-built military systems. For the NGC2 program, this approach incorporates Starlink, alongside 5G and Wi-Fi-enabled systems. (SpaceX, the developer and maintainer of Starlink, did not respond to a request for comment for this report.)
The primary prototyping phase for NGC2 ended with this exercise, helping to define the baseline of capabilities for the architecture. The service is now evaluating the optimal balance between commercial options and ruggedized or custom-built solutions for both hardware and software. While ruggedized equipment is typically more expensive and takes longer to develop, it generally offers greater durability in harsh environments or provides specific military functions. Commercial products are usually cheaper but may not always withstand austere conditions.
Leading up to Project Convergence, Army officials “knew the known limitations from some of that” commercial tech, Brig. Gen. Shane Taylor, capability program executive for Command and Control Information Network, told Breaking Defense.
Nevertheless, he emphasized that a key takeaway from PCC6 was soldiers employing tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to address unforeseen issues, such as the wet T-shirt cooling method.
“Before we go spend quadruple the cost of that equipment, are there some things that we can do?” Taylor questioned, noting that previous default thinking was to completely redesign or “Army-ize” systems if they failed to meet exact specifications.
Joseph Welch, portfolio acquisition executive for command and control and counter-command and control, shared this perspective at the TechNet conference in Augusta, Ga. “Anytime a TTP can be utilized and taught and understood in a very straightforward manner, and it’s not detracting from mission effectiveness, I mean that’s something I think that’s obviously appealing compared to over-ruggedized or telling vendors to make more rugged equipment,” he stated.
This feedback has also prompted discussions about integrating additional cooling technologies into vehicles to help prevent similar issues.
“The good thing is the commercial market’s continuing to move forward as well. So there’ll be more solutions that the Army will be able to take advantage of when you look out several years,” Welch said regarding SATCOM, resiliency, and cost.
“When we took a look back at what it was costing the Army to outfit divisions with legacy C2 capability compared to as our notion of a baseline is, we’re under review now coming out of PCC6, but we’re anywhere from 50 percent less expensive to another, I don’t know, 25 percent on top of that depending on the selections that we make,” he added. “We already know that the commercial first is going to significantly lower our costs and allow us to go faster.”
