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The satellite part of the Starlink system is practically invulnerable to physical attack because there are so many satellites in different orbits. Hitting them

The satellite part of the Starlink system is practically invulnerable to physical attack because there are so many satellites in different orbits. Hitting them all would require a prohibitively large number of rocket launches. Not to mention that attacking US satellites would probably be an act of war. The best way to attack the system might be to hack the user terminals, which Russia apparently already did to Viasat terminals located in Ukraine at the start of the invasion. SpaceX is now in direct opposition to the Russian military and is going to be attacked just as Viasat was. They need to especially make sure that the command and control systems for the satellites are bulletproof. I wonder if existing anti radiation missiles would be able to lock onto Starlink user terminals. If not, I expect that feature will be developed soon. It's well known that the US military has been investigating using Starlink so I'm sure other militaries have been thinking about countermeasures.

noitpmeder 5y ago
I'd imagine it's trivial for a motivated nation state to locate the ground stations -- they definitely seem easier targets for physical attacks.
- modeless 5y ago
  I believe the ground stations are located in NATO countries so Russia better not try attacking them... Attacking ground stations could degrade or deny service to nearby areas with the current Starlink system. But V2 will be able to route signals between satellites in space in areas where ground stations are missing, so that won't work in the future.
- mitchs 5y ago
  IMO the motivated state wouldn't go through the trouble to attack sites physically when they could just DDOS spacex's public IPs. It isn't like their IP address blocks are a secret, and it wouldn't be that hard to narrow it down to the ones that route to Europe.
  - r_hoods_ghost 5y ago
    This misses the point. The aim is not to take out Starlink. The aim is to take out the people using Starlink on the assumption that some of them at least are involved in the coordination of the defence of Ukraine. Using Starlink, or any other satellite uplink in an active warzone is essentially painting a target on your back. Doing so may very well be worth it if you are involved in the coordination of the defence of your nation, but its probably not if you're using it to read HN.
    - mitchs 5y ago
      Eh, I think of the menu of options, taking out Starlink in Europe with a DDOS has a high probability of providing value for Russia and is safer to execute compared with the theoretical attack of getting locations out of a starlink ground station. Even if they managed to gain access to the ground stations, they would then need to wade through a proprietary stack and hope that what they have access to actually has useful location data. SpaceX apparently operates on cells that are "5 miles in radius" hexagons, though people on reddit claim to get service up to 15 miles away from home. In any case, I could see a world where the ground station only knew what one of those cells a person was in, and the whole exercise of breaking into a ground station would have been for nothing.
      - r_hoods_ghost 5y ago
        I think we're talking at cross purposes. I (and presumably Musk) am talking about the Russian's targeting the starlink receivers / satellite dishes. These are (theoretucally at least) detectable using the same type of radio triangulation techniques used since WWII. Using one of these puts you in danger of attack if you are somewhere near it. And by attack I mean having a missile launched at you, being shelled, or having men with guns turn up on your doorstep. Hacking is not required.
      - tonfa 5y ago
        Isn't some part of starlink backbone on google networks? https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/13/google-cloud-wins-spacex-deal-for-starlink-internet-connectivity.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/13/google-cloud-wins-spacex-dea... That probably makes the bar to reach for a successful DDoS fairly high.
- gexla 5y ago
  I wonder how hard it would be to hit them though. They don't have full control over the air. Su-35 aircraft have been getting shot down. Are they still firing cruise missiles? How accurate are they? If it were trivial to locate them and take them out, wouldn't they have done that already?
  - guywhocodes 5y ago
    Their cruise missiles are generally inaccurate but it doesn't matter as they are almost all out.
    - mushbino 5y ago
      What do you mean they're almost out? It sounds absurd they'd have such a small stockpile.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - jorvi 5y ago
        The working theory is that massive corruption and yes-manning has led to Russia’s armed forces being a paper tiger. If someone at the top says “we need to restock 1000 additional cruise missiles”, then the person under that grifts a little and says “we need to stock 950 additional cruise missiles”, and you follow that down the chain, you might end up with 500 instead of 1000 missiles. Same would go for things like vehicle maintenance. And it might be more invisible too, like ordering cheap tires instead of quality one’s.
      - _ph_ 5y ago
        By all accounts, they are frequently running out of fuel. Which is the most basic, obvious, and also quite readily available in Russia. How bad can an invasion go if you run out of fuel on the way to your initial target? I have heard rumors, that some troups just sold off fuel on the black market before the invasion started. Whether that was just corruption or planned sabotage, no one of course knows.
labrador 5y ago
Musk addressed that in a tweet yesterday Important warning: Starlink is the only non-Russian communications system still working in some parts of Ukraine, so probability of being targeted is high. Please use with caution. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1499472139333746691 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1499472139333746691
- traceroute66 5y ago
  > Important warning: Starlink is the only non-Russian communications system still working in some parts of Ukraine, Sounds like something to take with a pinch of salt. I find it hard to believe that Inmarsat, Iridium etc. are no longer functional in Ukraine. Edit to add: (a) Given all the Western journos broadcasting out of Ukraine, I think it is almost certainly a fact that Inmarsat, Iridium etc. are still functional because its kind of standard kit for warzone correspondents. All the "senior correspondents" the major news orgs are sending out to Ukraine will have cut their teeth on Inmarsat, Iridium etc., and will be comfortable with its use and operation. (b) Twitter post from Iridium boss saying they've stopped shipments to Russia but have no intention of stopping shipments to Ukraine and/or stopping service over Ukraine. "Shutting down service over Ukraine would stop Ukrainian use and aid orgs as well."[1] [1] https://twitter.com/IridiumBoss/status/1498847589520846854?s=20&t=R-mGjfmEcMEbwoud5eednQ https://twitter.com/IridiumBoss/status/1498847589520846854?s...
  - thawaya3113 5y ago
    I’m almost certain it’s not true. I work with developers in Ukraine. They’re still logging in, joining calls, etc. I doubt that’s because they’re among the “lucky” few that got Starlink receivers. Musk is just a really effective lying conman.
    - saberience 5y ago
      He said "parts" of Ukraine. He didn't say all of Ukraine. I think it's probably highly likely there are some parts of Ukraine without Internet and using Starlink would be the only way to get internet.
_Microft 5y ago
It's not invulnerable at all. If anything the concentration of satellites at one altitude makes it more vulnerable because debris would spread out (think of "spread out" in a "shotgun" way) and threaten the other satellites of the constellation. These satellites move at speeds of kilometers per second, all it takes is putting something in their path to obliterate them. That could be a missile with or without ("hit-to-kill") a warhead or the debris of another satellite. (Edit: keep in mind that Starlink operates on dozens of different orbital planes all at the same inclination and (approx.) same altitude that all intersect twice over the course of an orbit (which takes approximately 90 minutes). Pieces from the debris cloud would be at risk of hitting another satellite at every intersection at a high relative speed. It's not a low risk of damage once but a low risk of causing damage again and again until the debris has decayed enough). If "Russia" (Putin) would like to disable Starlink satellites, I would guess that he easily could. If he wants to destroy an American-owned constellation and most likely raise the conflict to a whole another level is a different question.
- modeless 5y ago
  I disagree. Certainly you could create a debris cloud, but would it be big and dense enough to actually take out a large percentage of the constellation in a shortish time frame? My guess is no, especially considering that the satellites have some maneuvering capability. I'd be really interested in seeing some calculations about it though. How much mass, how many fragments, how does it spread, etc.
  - mjevans 5y ago
    Given their low orbit, it would make the next couple of decades (?? offhand, I'm not sure how long it would take for the debris to completely de-orbit and some of the results are going to be more energetic after any attack) really suck... The resulting loss of life as a result of inability to launch new storm tracking satellites alone should warrant the death penalty for anyone involved in such an intentional attack.
    - modeless 5y ago
branko_d 5y ago
Kessler syndrome: "...is a scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) due to space pollution is high enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade in which each collision generates space debris that increases the likelihood of further collisions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome So destroying a subset of satellites might create enough debris to cascade-destroy the rest of them. But that would not be limited to SpaceX satellites, and would effectively lock-out human species from accessing space for some time.
- modeless 5y ago
  Kessler syndrome is kind of a middlebrow concern people love to bring up because they heard about it one time, but I have yet to see any argument that it is a realistic problem for Starlink based on real calculations. The number of Starlink satellites is large compared to previous constellations, but still tiny compared to space which is of course vast. The low orbits used by Starlink are automatically cleaned up by the atmosphere. And even if there were debris clouds in low orbit it wouldn't lock out space access as it would still be possible to launch into higher orbits. The probability of collision is negligible if you're only passing through.
  - fswd 5y ago
    for a brief period, it might even work as an ICBM defence shield for the whole planet. Imagine every single rocket aborting due to debris for 1-2 years( a guess)
    - bufferoverflow 5y ago
      You're underestimating how huge the surface area of the sphere these satellites are orbiting, and how little material they have. Even if you somehow blow them all up, they won't shield you from ICBMs.
      - 14u2c 5y ago
        And if the debris field somehow was dense enough to provide such a shield it would block out enough sunlight to cause the death of most life on the planet I suspect.
nostrebored 5y ago
Missile launches, not rocket launches. And it’s not prohibitive, hundreds of missiles have been launched in Ukraine so far. Modern missile defense systems double as anti satellite weaponry, even ignoring debris clouds. But, I imagine the real attack here, if sufficiently motivated, would be much simpler. Bomb gps satellites, destroying time syncing functionality on the satellites.
- kcb 5y ago
  The missiles launched in Ukraine are not remotely capable of hitting a sattelite. Modern missile defense systems do not fire a single type of missile. In the US case only the most expensive/fairly rare missile is capable. It undoubtedly costs far more to destroy a Starlink satellite than to build and launch one.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - nostrebored 5y ago
    Governments have far more money than most private businesses. I never said they fired a single type of missile. US missile defense systems are frankly not cutting edge and lag behind Russia and China, and will for multiple years. Missile defense systems have significantly more existing infrastructure than exist for rocket launches. The question in wartime is ‘what capabilities are you getting rid of, and for how long?’ In the case of starlink, the question is complicated both by reaction to the creation of so much space trash and the piggybacked approach SpaceX has taken to get the satellites up there. This is feasible. Again, I doubt it is the right satellite attack strategy, but it is not absurd.
    - kcb 5y ago
      > US missile defense systems are frankly not cutting edge and lag behind Russia and China, and will for multiple years. This may be true for ground based anti-aircraft systems or maybe you're thinking of the recent buzz around anti-ship and hypersonic missiles. But for missile defense this is quite false. The Aegis system and THAAD are as good as it gets. US doctrine always focuses heavily on missile defense with the assumption that they would have air superiority for offense.
Tepix 5y ago
I was under the impression that you maybe could use a strong laser to damage satellites as well? No need to launch rockets, missiles, ...
dragonelite 5y ago
Don't the Russians and Chinese have lasers powerful enough to do some damage in LEO. I know that China has plans to clean up LEO "rubble" with lasers.
markdown 5y ago
> Not to mention that attacking US satellites would probably be an act of war. These aren't US satellites. They're SpaceX satellites. An attack might still result in war since they're owned by an Oligarch, but that certainly isn't the default.
- XorNot 5y ago
  Russia deliberately destroying satellites would be a heck of an escalation that would likely find retaliation in a mysteriously high failure rate of Russian spy satellite optics.
- extheat 5y ago
  An "act of war" is whatever the executives in government deem it to be. Being a asset which the US is responsible for and regulates (for example, if China wants to complain about it, they have to go to US gov, not the private company) it wouldn't be unreasonable for to treat it as a US asset. Most space and companies tech operate under ITAR restrictions, so the government isn't just a passive regulator here.
- tonyhb 5y ago
  A little off topic, but about calling all super-wealthy people in America "oligarchs". That's just not true - if anything, they're plutocrats. An oligarch is someone who was given their business by the government by force, often with murder and jail involved to the oppressed. Like Abramovich receiving state owned oil and steel companies. Musk built paypal, helped revive tesla, and built SpaceX using his own money as collateral. He didn't get handed NASA.
  - markdown 5y ago
    > An oligarch is someone who... That's how the word is/was used by the Russians, but isn't really how it's used by the western media. Any Russian billionaire is called an oligarch; it's used as a substitute for plutocrat. Musk, Bezos, the Koch brothers, Soros, and a few other billionaires are plutocrats, ergo, they are oligarchs.
  - kidme5 5y ago
rq1 5y ago
You need one rocket launch with a lot of (nuclear) EMP as cluster munitions.
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  That would also take out Russia's own satellites. And satellites belonging to their potential allies. So, probably not the best move. And guess which company is best positioned to re-launch a crazy amount of satellites in a very short time. Russia would have to allocate a lot of resources it does not currently have to keep up with SpaceX.
  - rq1 5y ago
    I’m not sure that they have a lot of material at the same orbits. And they can move their material prior to the attack anyway.
    - mkl 5y ago
      Same orbit or not doesn't matter, what matters is distance, and things in different low orbits (most satellites) are all pretty close to Earth and hence each other when orbits line up. They definitely can't just move satellites away, as satellites have very limited manoeuvring capabilities, and changing orbit takes a lot. The EMP of Starfish Prime [1], the detonation of a nuclear bomb at 400km altitude (the altitude of the ISS), knocked out streetlights over 1400km away in Hawaii. That means it could have damaged satellites up to at least 1800km altitude (but this was in 1962), which is almost all of the low Earth orbit altitude range. With enough nukes you could probably wipe out Starlink's satellites, but with the way they're spread out, I think you'd wipe out most other satellites too. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime
      - rq1 5y ago
        I meant the LEO orbit, though I have no idea of their military activities, they might as well have a ton of objects there. Thank you for the counterpoint though, it was interesting :)
LoveMortuus 5y ago
> The satellite part of the Starlink system is practically invulnerable to physical attack because there are so many satellites in different orbits. Hitting them all would require a prohibitively large number of rocket launches. What about lasers? Since even if it just heated up the satellite it could cause damage since they have no way of cooling.
- rocqua 5y ago
  Lasers have rather short range because of dispersion. The 'beam' widens over time. This is not a limitation of the laser or the lens, its a feature of physics and the wave-like nature of light. This is before considering the effects of atmosphere between a ground based laser and the satellite. This will make dispersion much worse.
  - qsdf38100 5y ago
    Hmmm, isn’t it very small though ? It’s able to reflect on a mirror on the moon and come back to earth, still as a focused beam, right ?
    - wiredfool 5y ago
      Lasers that bounce off the moon come back to earth as a few detectable photons, not as a beam of light that you’d recognize without very specialized equipment.
      - wiredfool 5y ago
        Well, to rephrase a bit, laser beams that bounce off the moon. Lasers that bounce off the moon are an expensive way to make a small crater.
  - EarthLaunch 5y ago
    So the question of effectiveness depends on how easy it is to pump kilowatts of laser energy at a satellite, and how much of that energy reaches the satellite based on dispersion from distance and atmosphere. Needs to be calculated. My guess is that since countries have tried creating laser defenses, someone knows.
kragen 5y ago
In theory it could require about the same number of rocket launches from the ground as it took to launch the satellites in the first place. You'd just do a single launch with lots and lots of satellites which you gradually move into orbits that hit the Starlink satellites. The killers don't need to spend weight on payload, and they can be designed for a lifespan of a few weeks, so for example they can carry very small amounts of propellant. They might be small enough that you can't see them until they strike, at which point it might be hard to determine who had launched them. You might think maneuvering thrusters would be visible because they glowed, but resistojets can run at subzero temperatures. It just makes them less efficient. The saving grace is that as far as I know nobody has such a system flying or ready to fly; the Kosmos 1408 test seems to be the state of the art. And it would probably cause a dramatic takeoff of Kessler syndrome at least in LEO, destroying other satellites as well, eventually everything in LEO. Aside from being a public relations catastrophe, this would dramatically diminish the wartime advantage of spacefaring powers like Russia, China, and the US over non-spacefaring powers like Iran, so those spacefaring powers might be reluctant to use such a weapon if they had it. You say, "attacking US satellites would probably be an act of war." Well, maybe. But it's just property damage; no human lives are at risk. And SpaceX is theoretically a private company, not officially part of the US military. If damaging the property of private citizens is "an act of war" then just about every country whose citizens own property in Ukraine has a casus belli against Russia now. And in that case Russia also has a casus belli against Germany: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/03/germany-seizes-russian-billionaire-alisher-usmanovs-600m-superyacht-report https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/03/germany-seizes... AFAIK Starlink user terminals aren't designed for stealth, so it would be foolish to expect stealth from them. However, they use millimeter-wave phased arrays with hundreds of elements, so they probably aren't crawling with sidelobes, and in theory their beam divergence would be about a degree with isotropic radiation more than 20dB down from the main beam, so it might be hard to detect until you're passing through the beam. And I'm guessing most anti-radar missiles are currently designed for regular microwaves, not millimeter waves. I don't know anything about Starlink's technical specs, though, and not much about millimeter-wave communications, and nothing about anti-radar missiles.
- krisoft 5y ago
  > In theory it could require about the same number of rocket launches from the ground as it took to launch the satellites in the first place. You have very dubious reasoning about this. It sounds like you are calculating attacking each satelite with an individually maneuverable free-flying space vehicle. This is clearly not the most optimal way to do it so it is not the right calculation to estimate the minimal number of launches required. Instead of thinking about smart and expensive satelite killers each with the complexity of a faberge-egg you can pack a missile full of nails and spread them into an expanding cloud with a timed explosive. A shrapnel bomb in orbit if you please. Will one launch suffice to kill all the starlink sats? Maybe, maybe you need two or 3 at different inclinations. You definietly don’t need as many launches as many spacex needed to put their satelites up.
Ygg2 5y ago
Is it though? An EMP detonated in atmosphere could render huge number of satellites inoperable.
sneak 5y ago
Antisatellite weapons are already on orbit. I'm not sure if there are enough presently up to take out a Starlink plane, but there are definitely some already up and at the ready, likely by at least Russia (and likely also the US).
- andy_ppp 5y ago
  I mean the US has almost certainly had space weapons since Reagan: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative
hahajk 5y ago
You wouldn’t need anti-radiation missiles, you just need to detect the radiation using some kind of sigint system, then plot those points on a map and attack them conventionally. I seem to remember that during the Crimea invasion, Russian used a similar tactic: they used sigint to find Ukrainian cell phone signals of soldiers hiding in the forests, tipping off the defenders’ locations.
throwaways85989 5y ago
No. Its easy. Once. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

noitpmeder 5y ago

I'd imagine it's trivial for a motivated nation state to locate the ground stations -- they definitely seem easier targets for physical attacks.

modeless 5y ago
I believe the ground stations are located in NATO countries so Russia better not try attacking them... Attacking ground stations could degrade or deny service to nearby areas with the current Starlink system. But V2 will be able to route signals between satellites in space in areas where ground stations are missing, so that won't work in the future.
mitchs 5y ago
IMO the motivated state wouldn't go through the trouble to attack sites physically when they could just DDOS spacex's public IPs. It isn't like their IP address blocks are a secret, and it wouldn't be that hard to narrow it down to the ones that route to Europe.
- r_hoods_ghost 5y ago
  This misses the point. The aim is not to take out Starlink. The aim is to take out the people using Starlink on the assumption that some of them at least are involved in the coordination of the defence of Ukraine. Using Starlink, or any other satellite uplink in an active warzone is essentially painting a target on your back. Doing so may very well be worth it if you are involved in the coordination of the defence of your nation, but its probably not if you're using it to read HN.
  - mitchs 5y ago
    Eh, I think of the menu of options, taking out Starlink in Europe with a DDOS has a high probability of providing value for Russia and is safer to execute compared with the theoretical attack of getting locations out of a starlink ground station. Even if they managed to gain access to the ground stations, they would then need to wade through a proprietary stack and hope that what they have access to actually has useful location data. SpaceX apparently operates on cells that are "5 miles in radius" hexagons, though people on reddit claim to get service up to 15 miles away from home. In any case, I could see a world where the ground station only knew what one of those cells a person was in, and the whole exercise of breaking into a ground station would have been for nothing.
    - r_hoods_ghost 5y ago
      I think we're talking at cross purposes. I (and presumably Musk) am talking about the Russian's targeting the starlink receivers / satellite dishes. These are (theoretucally at least) detectable using the same type of radio triangulation techniques used since WWII. Using one of these puts you in danger of attack if you are somewhere near it. And by attack I mean having a missile launched at you, being shelled, or having men with guns turn up on your doorstep. Hacking is not required.
    - tonfa 5y ago
      Isn't some part of starlink backbone on google networks? https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/13/google-cloud-wins-spacex-deal-for-starlink-internet-connectivity.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/13/google-cloud-wins-spacex-dea... That probably makes the bar to reach for a successful DDoS fairly high.
gexla 5y ago
I wonder how hard it would be to hit them though. They don't have full control over the air. Su-35 aircraft have been getting shot down. Are they still firing cruise missiles? How accurate are they? If it were trivial to locate them and take them out, wouldn't they have done that already?
- guywhocodes 5y ago
  Their cruise missiles are generally inaccurate but it doesn't matter as they are almost all out.
  - mushbino 5y ago
    What do you mean they're almost out? It sounds absurd they'd have such a small stockpile.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - jorvi 5y ago
      The working theory is that massive corruption and yes-manning has led to Russia’s armed forces being a paper tiger. If someone at the top says “we need to restock 1000 additional cruise missiles”, then the person under that grifts a little and says “we need to stock 950 additional cruise missiles”, and you follow that down the chain, you might end up with 500 instead of 1000 missiles. Same would go for things like vehicle maintenance. And it might be more invisible too, like ordering cheap tires instead of quality one’s.
    - _ph_ 5y ago
      By all accounts, they are frequently running out of fuel. Which is the most basic, obvious, and also quite readily available in Russia. How bad can an invasion go if you run out of fuel on the way to your initial target? I have heard rumors, that some troups just sold off fuel on the black market before the invasion started. Whether that was just corruption or planned sabotage, no one of course knows.

labrador 5y ago

Musk addressed that in a tweet yesterday Important warning: Starlink is the only non-Russian communications system still working in some parts of Ukraine, so probability of being targeted is high. Please use with caution. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1499472139333746691 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1499472139333746691

traceroute66 5y ago
> Important warning: Starlink is the only non-Russian communications system still working in some parts of Ukraine, Sounds like something to take with a pinch of salt. I find it hard to believe that Inmarsat, Iridium etc. are no longer functional in Ukraine. Edit to add: (a) Given all the Western journos broadcasting out of Ukraine, I think it is almost certainly a fact that Inmarsat, Iridium etc. are still functional because its kind of standard kit for warzone correspondents. All the "senior correspondents" the major news orgs are sending out to Ukraine will have cut their teeth on Inmarsat, Iridium etc., and will be comfortable with its use and operation. (b) Twitter post from Iridium boss saying they've stopped shipments to Russia but have no intention of stopping shipments to Ukraine and/or stopping service over Ukraine. "Shutting down service over Ukraine would stop Ukrainian use and aid orgs as well."[1] [1] https://twitter.com/IridiumBoss/status/1498847589520846854?s=20&t=R-mGjfmEcMEbwoud5eednQ https://twitter.com/IridiumBoss/status/1498847589520846854?s...
- thawaya3113 5y ago
  I’m almost certain it’s not true. I work with developers in Ukraine. They’re still logging in, joining calls, etc. I doubt that’s because they’re among the “lucky” few that got Starlink receivers. Musk is just a really effective lying conman.
  - saberience 5y ago
    He said "parts" of Ukraine. He didn't say all of Ukraine. I think it's probably highly likely there are some parts of Ukraine without Internet and using Starlink would be the only way to get internet.

_Microft 5y ago

It's not invulnerable at all. If anything the concentration of satellites at one altitude makes it more vulnerable because debris would spread out (think of "spread out" in a "shotgun" way) and threaten the other satellites of the constellation. These satellites move at speeds of kilometers per second, all it takes is putting something in their path to obliterate them. That could be a missile with or without ("hit-to-kill") a warhead or the debris of another satellite. (Edit: keep in mind that Starlink operates on dozens of different orbital planes all at the same inclination and (approx.) same altitude that all intersect twice over the course of an orbit (which takes approximately 90 minutes). Pieces from the debris cloud would be at risk of hitting another satellite at every intersection at a high relative speed. It's not a low risk of damage once but a low risk of causing damage again and again until the debris has decayed enough). If "Russia" (Putin) would like to disable Starlink satellites, I would guess that he easily could. If he wants to destroy an American-owned constellation and most likely raise the conflict to a whole another level is a different question.

modeless 5y ago
I disagree. Certainly you could create a debris cloud, but would it be big and dense enough to actually take out a large percentage of the constellation in a shortish time frame? My guess is no, especially considering that the satellites have some maneuvering capability. I'd be really interested in seeing some calculations about it though. How much mass, how many fragments, how does it spread, etc.
- mjevans 5y ago
  Given their low orbit, it would make the next couple of decades (?? offhand, I'm not sure how long it would take for the debris to completely de-orbit and some of the results are going to be more energetic after any attack) really suck... The resulting loss of life as a result of inability to launch new storm tracking satellites alone should warrant the death penalty for anyone involved in such an intentional attack.
  - modeless 5y ago

branko_d 5y ago

Kessler syndrome: "...is a scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) due to space pollution is high enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade in which each collision generates space debris that increases the likelihood of further collisions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome So destroying a subset of satellites might create enough debris to cascade-destroy the rest of them. But that would not be limited to SpaceX satellites, and would effectively lock-out human species from accessing space for some time.

modeless 5y ago
Kessler syndrome is kind of a middlebrow concern people love to bring up because they heard about it one time, but I have yet to see any argument that it is a realistic problem for Starlink based on real calculations. The number of Starlink satellites is large compared to previous constellations, but still tiny compared to space which is of course vast. The low orbits used by Starlink are automatically cleaned up by the atmosphere. And even if there were debris clouds in low orbit it wouldn't lock out space access as it would still be possible to launch into higher orbits. The probability of collision is negligible if you're only passing through.
- fswd 5y ago
  for a brief period, it might even work as an ICBM defence shield for the whole planet. Imagine every single rocket aborting due to debris for 1-2 years( a guess)
  - bufferoverflow 5y ago
    You're underestimating how huge the surface area of the sphere these satellites are orbiting, and how little material they have. Even if you somehow blow them all up, they won't shield you from ICBMs.
    - 14u2c 5y ago
      And if the debris field somehow was dense enough to provide such a shield it would block out enough sunlight to cause the death of most life on the planet I suspect.

nostrebored 5y ago

Missile launches, not rocket launches. And it’s not prohibitive, hundreds of missiles have been launched in Ukraine so far. Modern missile defense systems double as anti satellite weaponry, even ignoring debris clouds. But, I imagine the real attack here, if sufficiently motivated, would be much simpler. Bomb gps satellites, destroying time syncing functionality on the satellites.

kcb 5y ago
The missiles launched in Ukraine are not remotely capable of hitting a sattelite. Modern missile defense systems do not fire a single type of missile. In the US case only the most expensive/fairly rare missile is capable. It undoubtedly costs far more to destroy a Starlink satellite than to build and launch one.
- deleted 5y ago
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- nostrebored 5y ago
  Governments have far more money than most private businesses. I never said they fired a single type of missile. US missile defense systems are frankly not cutting edge and lag behind Russia and China, and will for multiple years. Missile defense systems have significantly more existing infrastructure than exist for rocket launches. The question in wartime is ‘what capabilities are you getting rid of, and for how long?’ In the case of starlink, the question is complicated both by reaction to the creation of so much space trash and the piggybacked approach SpaceX has taken to get the satellites up there. This is feasible. Again, I doubt it is the right satellite attack strategy, but it is not absurd.
  - kcb 5y ago
    > US missile defense systems are frankly not cutting edge and lag behind Russia and China, and will for multiple years. This may be true for ground based anti-aircraft systems or maybe you're thinking of the recent buzz around anti-ship and hypersonic missiles. But for missile defense this is quite false. The Aegis system and THAAD are as good as it gets. US doctrine always focuses heavily on missile defense with the assumption that they would have air superiority for offense.

Tepix 5y ago

I was under the impression that you maybe could use a strong laser to damage satellites as well? No need to launch rockets, missiles, ...

dragonelite 5y ago

Don't the Russians and Chinese have lasers powerful enough to do some damage in LEO. I know that China has plans to clean up LEO "rubble" with lasers.

markdown 5y ago

> Not to mention that attacking US satellites would probably be an act of war. These aren't US satellites. They're SpaceX satellites. An attack might still result in war since they're owned by an Oligarch, but that certainly isn't the default.

XorNot 5y ago
Russia deliberately destroying satellites would be a heck of an escalation that would likely find retaliation in a mysteriously high failure rate of Russian spy satellite optics.
extheat 5y ago
An "act of war" is whatever the executives in government deem it to be. Being a asset which the US is responsible for and regulates (for example, if China wants to complain about it, they have to go to US gov, not the private company) it wouldn't be unreasonable for to treat it as a US asset. Most space and companies tech operate under ITAR restrictions, so the government isn't just a passive regulator here.
tonyhb 5y ago
A little off topic, but about calling all super-wealthy people in America "oligarchs". That's just not true - if anything, they're plutocrats. An oligarch is someone who was given their business by the government by force, often with murder and jail involved to the oppressed. Like Abramovich receiving state owned oil and steel companies. Musk built paypal, helped revive tesla, and built SpaceX using his own money as collateral. He didn't get handed NASA.
- markdown 5y ago
  > An oligarch is someone who... That's how the word is/was used by the Russians, but isn't really how it's used by the western media. Any Russian billionaire is called an oligarch; it's used as a substitute for plutocrat. Musk, Bezos, the Koch brothers, Soros, and a few other billionaires are plutocrats, ergo, they are oligarchs.
- kidme5 5y ago

rq1 5y ago

You need one rocket launch with a lot of (nuclear) EMP as cluster munitions.

jillesvangurp 5y ago
That would also take out Russia's own satellites. And satellites belonging to their potential allies. So, probably not the best move. And guess which company is best positioned to re-launch a crazy amount of satellites in a very short time. Russia would have to allocate a lot of resources it does not currently have to keep up with SpaceX.
- rq1 5y ago
  I’m not sure that they have a lot of material at the same orbits. And they can move their material prior to the attack anyway.
  - mkl 5y ago
    Same orbit or not doesn't matter, what matters is distance, and things in different low orbits (most satellites) are all pretty close to Earth and hence each other when orbits line up. They definitely can't just move satellites away, as satellites have very limited manoeuvring capabilities, and changing orbit takes a lot. The EMP of Starfish Prime [1], the detonation of a nuclear bomb at 400km altitude (the altitude of the ISS), knocked out streetlights over 1400km away in Hawaii. That means it could have damaged satellites up to at least 1800km altitude (but this was in 1962), which is almost all of the low Earth orbit altitude range. With enough nukes you could probably wipe out Starlink's satellites, but with the way they're spread out, I think you'd wipe out most other satellites too. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime
    - rq1 5y ago
      I meant the LEO orbit, though I have no idea of their military activities, they might as well have a ton of objects there. Thank you for the counterpoint though, it was interesting :)

LoveMortuus 5y ago

> The satellite part of the Starlink system is practically invulnerable to physical attack because there are so many satellites in different orbits. Hitting them all would require a prohibitively large number of rocket launches. What about lasers? Since even if it just heated up the satellite it could cause damage since they have no way of cooling.

rocqua 5y ago
Lasers have rather short range because of dispersion. The 'beam' widens over time. This is not a limitation of the laser or the lens, its a feature of physics and the wave-like nature of light. This is before considering the effects of atmosphere between a ground based laser and the satellite. This will make dispersion much worse.
- qsdf38100 5y ago
  Hmmm, isn’t it very small though ? It’s able to reflect on a mirror on the moon and come back to earth, still as a focused beam, right ?
  - wiredfool 5y ago
    Lasers that bounce off the moon come back to earth as a few detectable photons, not as a beam of light that you’d recognize without very specialized equipment.
    - wiredfool 5y ago
      Well, to rephrase a bit, laser beams that bounce off the moon. Lasers that bounce off the moon are an expensive way to make a small crater.
- EarthLaunch 5y ago
  So the question of effectiveness depends on how easy it is to pump kilowatts of laser energy at a satellite, and how much of that energy reaches the satellite based on dispersion from distance and atmosphere. Needs to be calculated. My guess is that since countries have tried creating laser defenses, someone knows.

kragen 5y ago

In theory it could require about the same number of rocket launches from the ground as it took to launch the satellites in the first place. You'd just do a single launch with lots and lots of satellites which you gradually move into orbits that hit the Starlink satellites. The killers don't need to spend weight on payload, and they can be designed for a lifespan of a few weeks, so for example they can carry very small amounts of propellant. They might be small enough that you can't see them until they strike, at which point it might be hard to determine who had launched them. You might think maneuvering thrusters would be visible because they glowed, but resistojets can run at subzero temperatures. It just makes them less efficient. The saving grace is that as far as I know nobody has such a system flying or ready to fly; the Kosmos 1408 test seems to be the state of the art. And it would probably cause a dramatic takeoff of Kessler syndrome at least in LEO, destroying other satellites as well, eventually everything in LEO. Aside from being a public relations catastrophe, this would dramatically diminish the wartime advantage of spacefaring powers like Russia, China, and the US over non-spacefaring powers like Iran, so those spacefaring powers might be reluctant to use such a weapon if they had it. You say, "attacking US satellites would probably be an act of war." Well, maybe. But it's just property damage; no human lives are at risk. And SpaceX is theoretically a private company, not officially part of the US military. If damaging the property of private citizens is "an act of war" then just about every country whose citizens own property in Ukraine has a casus belli against Russia now. And in that case Russia also has a casus belli against Germany: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/03/germany-seizes-russian-billionaire-alisher-usmanovs-600m-superyacht-report https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/03/germany-seizes... AFAIK Starlink user terminals aren't designed for stealth, so it would be foolish to expect stealth from them. However, they use millimeter-wave phased arrays with hundreds of elements, so they probably aren't crawling with sidelobes, and in theory their beam divergence would be about a degree with isotropic radiation more than 20dB down from the main beam, so it might be hard to detect until you're passing through the beam. And I'm guessing most anti-radar missiles are currently designed for regular microwaves, not millimeter waves. I don't know anything about Starlink's technical specs, though, and not much about millimeter-wave communications, and nothing about anti-radar missiles.

krisoft 5y ago
> In theory it could require about the same number of rocket launches from the ground as it took to launch the satellites in the first place. You have very dubious reasoning about this. It sounds like you are calculating attacking each satelite with an individually maneuverable free-flying space vehicle. This is clearly not the most optimal way to do it so it is not the right calculation to estimate the minimal number of launches required. Instead of thinking about smart and expensive satelite killers each with the complexity of a faberge-egg you can pack a missile full of nails and spread them into an expanding cloud with a timed explosive. A shrapnel bomb in orbit if you please. Will one launch suffice to kill all the starlink sats? Maybe, maybe you need two or 3 at different inclinations. You definietly don’t need as many launches as many spacex needed to put their satelites up.

Ygg2 5y ago

Is it though? An EMP detonated in atmosphere could render huge number of satellites inoperable.

sneak 5y ago

Antisatellite weapons are already on orbit. I'm not sure if there are enough presently up to take out a Starlink plane, but there are definitely some already up and at the ready, likely by at least Russia (and likely also the US).

andy_ppp 5y ago
I mean the US has almost certainly had space weapons since Reagan: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative

hahajk 5y ago

You wouldn’t need anti-radiation missiles, you just need to detect the radiation using some kind of sigint system, then plot those points on a map and attack them conventionally. I seem to remember that during the Crimea invasion, Russian used a similar tactic: they used sigint to find Ukrainian cell phone signals of soldiers hiding in the forests, tipping off the defenders’ locations.

throwaways85989 5y ago

No. Its easy. Once. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome