Chinese researchers say their country should have the ability to destroy SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.
Starlink is Elon Musk’s high-speed satellite Internet project. Its main advantages should be availability and low signal delay, thus satellites are placed in low orbits.
In this regard, to completely cover the Earth, there must be a lot of satellites, tens of thousands.
By early 2022, SpaceX had launched more than 2,000 of them.
Ren Yuanzhen of the Beijing Institute of Monitoring and Telecommunications of the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force and his colleagues have published an article in Modern Defense Technology, about the potential danger of this system to China.
In this regard, according to the authors, China needs to develop a powerful system for tracking space objects, and possibly destroying them.
“We must master a combination of soft methods, which can cause the failure of individual devices and the entire group,” the authors wrote.
Experts estimate that US military drones and stealth combat aircraft will be able to transmit data 100 times faster using this system.
In addition, SpaceX has signed a contract with the US Department of Defense to develop a new technology based on the Starlink platform, which is designed to track hypersonic missiles in the Earth’s atmosphere. Finally, the Starlinks are equipped with ion thrusters to maintain a stable orbit, but can also be used as a weapon to fend off other satellites.
Therefore, China needs to develop high-quality imaging equipment for these devices in order to get acquainted with their possible new functions, as well as to know how to intercept the signal of this constellation.
China has also shown its ability to destroy satellites with missiles, but in the case of the huge Starlink constellation, this does not make sense. Alternatively, the devices can be disabled by laser or electronic warfare.
