Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if some starlink launches included secret satellites. Hide your top secret launches in plain sight with a few dozen similarly sized legit starlink satellites.
SpaceX’s Starshield satellites were also the focus of attention in the last month when during the Starlink Group 7-16 mission, the company only launched 20 Starlink satellites despite having previously announced 22 were launching onboard.
US government satellite tracking data later identified the extra two satellites onboard as USA 350 and USA 351 and therefore were classified. It is highly likely that these two spacecraft are Starshield satellites, SpaceX’s satellites for national security missions based on the Starlink satellite bus.
Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if some starlink launches included secret satellites. Hide your top secret launches in plain sight with a few dozen similarly sized legit starlink satellites.
They’re already sort of doing that with Starshield satellites.
The only issue is for which side will they spy