4 ms·

SpaceX eventually hopes to have as many as 42,000 satellites in orbit. How will hard kill work once all the satellites are deployed? Not only that, there are ot

SpaceX eventually hopes to have as many as 42,000 satellites in orbit. How will hard kill work once all the satellites are deployed? Not only that, there are other companies that are in the planning stage of deploying just as many satellites. China's response is likely to launch just as many satellites and have its own system in place. Hard kill is very unlikely to work. Specially now that SpaceX knows about the threat and can work towards minimizing it.

Vladimof 4y ago
If you have a laser weapon that can target one, it's probably trivial to target all of them one by one?
- WheelsAtLarge 4y ago
  Sounds good but where are you going to get the energy, in space, to disable 42k of them? Plus the ones that are coming. It's a no win for China. Interesting how Starlink has transition to a nice to have civilian project to a must have national defense project. I bet that the defense department will work hard, along with SpaceX, to make sure all 42k are deployed.
  - Vladimof 4y ago
    > Sounds good but where you going to get the energy, in space There's always the sun or the possibility to laser them out from earth using nuclear energy (or even coal)
nradov 4y ago
Space dominance will be as critical to 21st century conflicts as air superiority was to 20th century conflicts. The superpowers recognize this, and will build thousands of anti-satellite weapons if that's what it takes. Welcome to the new arms race. Individual satellites aren't survivable, at least not in LEO. They follow predictable orbits, can't maneuver much, and won't be able to carry significant defensive systems. The best that SpaceX (or any satellite operator) can do is keep some spares in orbit for redundancy, plus have a replacement inventory on the ground that can be launched within days.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
  It’s probably cost prohibitive to shoot down tens of thousands of satellites with conventional rockets. They’d need SpaceX-like reusable technology to get to a point where it costs about as much to shoot them down as it takes to get them into orbit.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Vladimof 4y ago

If you have a laser weapon that can target one, it's probably trivial to target all of them one by one?

WheelsAtLarge 4y ago
Sounds good but where are you going to get the energy, in space, to disable 42k of them? Plus the ones that are coming. It's a no win for China. Interesting how Starlink has transition to a nice to have civilian project to a must have national defense project. I bet that the defense department will work hard, along with SpaceX, to make sure all 42k are deployed.
- Vladimof 4y ago
  > Sounds good but where you going to get the energy, in space There's always the sun or the possibility to laser them out from earth using nuclear energy (or even coal)

nradov 4y ago

Space dominance will be as critical to 21st century conflicts as air superiority was to 20th century conflicts. The superpowers recognize this, and will build thousands of anti-satellite weapons if that's what it takes. Welcome to the new arms race. Individual satellites aren't survivable, at least not in LEO. They follow predictable orbits, can't maneuver much, and won't be able to carry significant defensive systems. The best that SpaceX (or any satellite operator) can do is keep some spares in orbit for redundancy, plus have a replacement inventory on the ground that can be launched within days.

IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
It’s probably cost prohibitive to shoot down tens of thousands of satellites with conventional rockets. They’d need SpaceX-like reusable technology to get to a point where it costs about as much to shoot them down as it takes to get them into orbit.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]