https://www.livescience.com/china-plans-...y-starlink
INTRO: Chinese military researchers have called for the development of a "hard kill" weapon to destroy Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system if it threatens China's national security
The researchers drew attention to Starlink's "huge potential for military applications" and the need for China to develop countermeasures to surveill, disable or even destroy the growing satellite megaconstellation. Their paper was published last month in the journal China's Modern Defence Technology. A translated copy of the paper is available here.
Starlink is a broadband satellite internet network developed by Musk's SpaceX company that aims to beam internet access to customers anywhere in the world (as long as they have a Starlink satellite dish to connect to the satellites). Since the first Starlink satellites were launched in 2019, SpaceX has put more than 2,300 of them into low-Earth orbit, and the company plans to send up to 42,000 satellites into space to form a gigantic megaconstellation.
The Chinese researchers were particularly concerned by the potential military capabilities of the constellation, which they claim could be used to track hypersonic missiles; dramatically boost the data transmission speeds of U.S. drones and stealth fighter jets; or even ram into and destroy Chinese satellites. China has had some near misses with Starlink satellites already, having written to the U.N. last year to complain that the country's space station was forced to perform emergency maneuvers to avoid "close encounters" with Starlink satellites in July and October 2021.
"A combination of soft and hard kill methods should be adopted to make some Starlink satellites lose their functions and destroy the constellation's operating system," the researchers, led by Ren Yuanzhen, a researcher at the Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications, which is part of the Chinese military's Strategic Support Force, wrote in the paper. Hard and soft kill are the two categories of space weapons, with hard kill being weapons that physically strike their targets like missiles and soft kill including jamming and laser weapons.
China already has multiple methods for disabling satellites... (MORE - details)
INTRO: Chinese military researchers have called for the development of a "hard kill" weapon to destroy Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system if it threatens China's national security
The researchers drew attention to Starlink's "huge potential for military applications" and the need for China to develop countermeasures to surveill, disable or even destroy the growing satellite megaconstellation. Their paper was published last month in the journal China's Modern Defence Technology. A translated copy of the paper is available here.
Starlink is a broadband satellite internet network developed by Musk's SpaceX company that aims to beam internet access to customers anywhere in the world (as long as they have a Starlink satellite dish to connect to the satellites). Since the first Starlink satellites were launched in 2019, SpaceX has put more than 2,300 of them into low-Earth orbit, and the company plans to send up to 42,000 satellites into space to form a gigantic megaconstellation.
The Chinese researchers were particularly concerned by the potential military capabilities of the constellation, which they claim could be used to track hypersonic missiles; dramatically boost the data transmission speeds of U.S. drones and stealth fighter jets; or even ram into and destroy Chinese satellites. China has had some near misses with Starlink satellites already, having written to the U.N. last year to complain that the country's space station was forced to perform emergency maneuvers to avoid "close encounters" with Starlink satellites in July and October 2021.
"A combination of soft and hard kill methods should be adopted to make some Starlink satellites lose their functions and destroy the constellation's operating system," the researchers, led by Ren Yuanzhen, a researcher at the Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications, which is part of the Chinese military's Strategic Support Force, wrote in the paper. Hard and soft kill are the two categories of space weapons, with hard kill being weapons that physically strike their targets like missiles and soft kill including jamming and laser weapons.
China already has multiple methods for disabling satellites... (MORE - details)