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> Satellites? They can be jammed, blinded, or destroyed. But you can only jam, blind or destroy them starting from some point. There are currently private comp

> Satellites? They can be jammed, blinded, or destroyed. But you can only jam, blind or destroy them starting from some point. There are currently private companies building up satellite constellations that will look at and record the entire surface of the earth more than once a day. It is entirely within the capability of US, China or Russia to today build a satellite constellation that will track the position of every potentially hostile naval surface asset in real time. Then, if someone starts jamming/blinding your satellites, you will pick up the phone, call them, and tell them that doing so is an act of war and if they do not stop you will have to sink their ships now, while you still know where they are, instead of waiting long enough to kindly let them wander far enough from their last known positions to be able to evade strikes. The sensor density of the modern battlefield is yes. Hiding something that can literally be seen from space will not work. Defending from strikes will possibly work -- hypersonics/ballistic missiles are generally not very nimble and with modern tech intercepting them with a slower missile can be very economical for the defender.

nradov 5y ago
That's not how it works in the real world. No one has been willing to escalate to sinking ships as retaliation over non-kinetic attacks on satellites.
dragontamer 5y ago
> Then, if someone starts jamming/blinding your satellites, you will pick up the phone, call them, and tell them that doing so is an act of war and if they do not stop you will have to sink their ships now, while you still know where they are, instead of waiting long enough to kindly let them wander far enough from their last known positions to be able to evade strikes. We're already at this point. Now what? https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43328/u-s-satellites-are-being-attacked-everyday-according-to-space-force-general https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43328/u-s-satellites-a... > U.S. Space Force's General David Thompson, the service's second in command, said last week that Russia and China are launching "reversible attacks," such as electronic warfare jamming, temporarily blinding optics with lasers, and cyber attacks, on U.S. satellites "every single day." He also disclosed that a small Russian satellite used to conduct an on-orbit anti-satellite weapon test back in 2019 had first gotten so close to an American one that there were concerns an actual attack was imminent. China and Russia have _ALREADY_ begun to live-test satellite jamming / satellite blinding weapons on live US satellites. -------- Those satellites are going to be obliterated as soon as China or Russia actually gives a damn. Russia is testing anti-satellite missiles. Etc. etc. They're already well within the capabilities to blow up every single US satellite should they so desire!
greedo 5y ago
The key mistake in your paragraph is "while you still know where they are." Even with RORSats (radar ocean recon sats) it's hard to track ships at sea. And RORSats aren't cheap, and dish size is important in detection range and fidelity. It'll be quite a while before they're deployed in quantities like Starlink. And Geosync orbits aren't cheap in terms of propellant cost etc etc. If you try to use IR sensors, that's tough in a maritime environment. Trying to use some sort of OCR with photosensors might work, but again, weather screws with that. Additionally, ships have this ability to move. A CVN and accompanying ships can move at around 30 knots. If your kill chain takes 30 minutes from detection to launch, the CVN and its escorts can dramatically expand the area your missile needs to scan an acquire the target. And I won't even comment about how you're equating jamming/blinding with an act of war. We even have ships/planes that are routinely exposed to jamming and blinding gear without resorting to outright combat.

nradov 5y ago

That's not how it works in the real world. No one has been willing to escalate to sinking ships as retaliation over non-kinetic attacks on satellites.

dragontamer 5y ago

> Then, if someone starts jamming/blinding your satellites, you will pick up the phone, call them, and tell them that doing so is an act of war and if they do not stop you will have to sink their ships now, while you still know where they are, instead of waiting long enough to kindly let them wander far enough from their last known positions to be able to evade strikes. We're already at this point. Now what? https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43328/u-s-satellites-are-being-attacked-everyday-according-to-space-force-general https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43328/u-s-satellites-a... > U.S. Space Force's General David Thompson, the service's second in command, said last week that Russia and China are launching "reversible attacks," such as electronic warfare jamming, temporarily blinding optics with lasers, and cyber attacks, on U.S. satellites "every single day." He also disclosed that a small Russian satellite used to conduct an on-orbit anti-satellite weapon test back in 2019 had first gotten so close to an American one that there were concerns an actual attack was imminent. China and Russia have _ALREADY_ begun to live-test satellite jamming / satellite blinding weapons on live US satellites. -------- Those satellites are going to be obliterated as soon as China or Russia actually gives a damn. Russia is testing anti-satellite missiles. Etc. etc. They're already well within the capabilities to blow up every single US satellite should they so desire!

greedo 5y ago

The key mistake in your paragraph is "while you still know where they are." Even with RORSats (radar ocean recon sats) it's hard to track ships at sea. And RORSats aren't cheap, and dish size is important in detection range and fidelity. It'll be quite a while before they're deployed in quantities like Starlink. And Geosync orbits aren't cheap in terms of propellant cost etc etc. If you try to use IR sensors, that's tough in a maritime environment. Trying to use some sort of OCR with photosensors might work, but again, weather screws with that. Additionally, ships have this ability to move. A CVN and accompanying ships can move at around 30 knots. If your kill chain takes 30 minutes from detection to launch, the CVN and its escorts can dramatically expand the area your missile needs to scan an acquire the target. And I won't even comment about how you're equating jamming/blinding with an act of war. We even have ships/planes that are routinely exposed to jamming and blinding gear without resorting to outright combat.