‘somebody at a security conference said one method of dealing with a target is destroying it’
wow incredible story. Surely this is being upvoted because it’s a quality article about current events that are globally relevant and not because the musk obsessives are jerking off to the fantasy the headline presented.
There is an enough_musk_spam community where this stuff should be posted.
Here’s the actual reporting that this clickbait was extracted from https://archive.ph/20260709102553/https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-new-axis-of-evil-der-spiegel-investigation-reveals-deep-military-cooperation-between-russia-and-china-a-12dc295a-413d-4a2f-b44f-2922092270e3#selection-1635.25-1635.374 fair warning it just boils down to ‘Russia and China have some military cooperation because they see the US as a shared adversary’
I wonder how much taxpayer money will be spent trying to protect musk’s satellites.
Honestly, they are so cheap compared to anything that could kill them. The best passive defense strategy is to just launch more.
Obviously there are lots of active defense measures that would be on the table. But that would likely be the chosen passive defense strategy.
Hopefully elol gets the point that he cant take up unlimited place in space for his 5g radars, sharing is caring
I could get on board with that.
Ooh I’m actually all for this! Destroy ALL the satellites!
The problem is they won’t clean anything up.
Clean what up? The debris that burns up in the atmosphere?
I suggest reading the Kessler syndrome article on Wikipedia. The short of it is that not all that debris is expected to come down.
Eventually it will all come down, but it will take a very long time
Fair. I probably should have written “not all of it will immediately deorbit.”
Oh yeah I was being pedantic. I knew what you meant!
The Kessler syndrome was a proposed scenario, not a scientific study. A hypothetical.
This article is about countering Starlink. Starlink satellites are in such low orbit, they de-orbit by themselves and fall back and burn up in the atmosphere very quickly if they don’t correct their orbit regularly.
And the (heavily editorialized) news headline was to do it explosively. Not sure where you and I are disconnecting here.
Yay!
Kessler Syndrome! Kessler Syndrome! Kessler Syndrome!
/s
Low Earth orbit means that the debris will get dragged down by the atmosphere before it becomes a cascading problem. Thankfully.
So we can directly pollute the upper atmosphere with heavy metals? I’m sure that’s a good thing. /s
Happens all the time with meteors. There’s a lot of atmoshpere and only so many Starlink satellites; far too few satellites to meaningfully affect anything.
Assuming none of the debris gets pushed into higher orbits.
Which it absolutely will, at least in the sense no part of the ellipse is lower.
Orbits are elipses, which are loops. So after the explosion gives an object more energy it’s in a new orbit right? That orbit has LOOP. Which means it has to come back to a similar point it’s at now. Therefore if an object passes through low orbit, no one explosion can make it be in a high orbit. At best it’ll be an ellipse with a point in high orbit and a point in low orbit.
Any amount in low orbit means a decaying orbit due to drag with eventual falling out of the sky.
If you get to the high orbit point and you get a SECOND explosion that’s perfectly timed you could theoretically enter a new high orbit that’s stable over the long term and contribute to Kessler syndrome.
Blowing up a low orbit satellites can lead to many particles reaching high altitudes, if only temporary as you say, where they can cause cascades. Unstable orbits make the probability of collisions smaller, but they need to shatter only one satellite to end up with a mess in stable orbits.
Space is pretty big. I understand the odds are non zero but it’s still really small in this scenario.
There’s a whole concept about this, a Kessler countdown of some sort. Some scientists are trying to figure out in the hypothetical situation where all satellites in orbit lost attitude control and evasive maneuver capabilities, how long would it take to initiate the Kessler syndrome. Apparently we went from months to days within the last decade.
An astrophysicist I follow on Matodon is super vocal about it. I’ll have to find her posts.
Ok found it, is is pretty relevant.
I think it will depend on how they would disable the satellites. There’s a lot of Starlink satellites, it’s a lot of particles if they use explosives…
I’ll grab my popcorn and watch all the fireworks and Star link bits twinkle
If bits of satellite get propelled in the original direction of travel, they will stabilize into a higher orbit.
Much like how you can do the rocket equivalent of hitting the gas and end up in higher orbit.
Not without a second impulse at the minimum. There are no stabilising forces like friction or drag in space.
They’ll slow down whenever they hit their original altitude (or lower), no? Is it impossible for this to result in a stable higher orbit?
There is a low altitude and a high altitude point in an orbit. (Apogee for the high point, perigee for the low point) If you slow down at perigee, the altitude of the apogee decreases. If perigee is in atmosphere, then every time you go through that point, you slow down and the apogee decreases again. Sooner or later too much of the orbit is below atmosphere, and whatever it is that was in orbit burns up or falls down.
I think.
Yes. Gravity! Provided by the orbit-ee.
On the plus side, global cooling achieved through a shield of reflective debris!
Who needs GPS and climate data anyway, right?
GPS is comically higher than starlink.
I’d be much more worried about a direct attack.
Yea but you still have to get the GPS satellites up there safely. I see though that it might actually not be that big of an issue of GPS.
Yes, but a screen of tiny reflective particles spread through orbit between the Earth and the GPS satellites might cause communication problems.
That’s not what these satellites are used for.
Yay! but the Ukraine war effort Boo! but less space junk! Yay! but all those just… normal Starlink customers who need internet Boo! but fuck Musk! Yay!
I’m gonna need a drink.
Blowing up satellites turns it from 1 bit of space junk into thousands…
They’re so low they’ll just burn up
Depends what new orbit a given piece of junk is in. It could be mostly higher, only approaching the old one at it’s semiminor axis.
It’s not as bad as blowing up a higher satellite, but most antisatellite weapons try to capture rather than destroy to avoid the question entirely.
Eventually, doesn’t it still take a while though?
I think by pure count, the amount of space junk would go up. The pieces would just be a lot smaller.
How about a frozen yogurt? I call it frogurt.
That’s good!
The frogurt is also capitalist.
That’s bad!
But you get your choice of topping.
That’s good!
The toppings contain regulatory capture.
Edit: That’s bad.
Why not frozurt? It sounds less cursed!
I think it’s fine to get Starlink and dislike Musk.
No no one liked Carlos Slim or Sol Trujillo either.
That is inevitable. The sky will be filled with the trash of struck down satellites and nothing can leave earth for a while. Before starlink, China had already demonstrated that they can shoot down satellites. No investigation needed.
filled with the trash of struck down satellites
It’s already full of trash of operating satellites. Starlink is very very low orbit. When pieces go in random directions (assuming significant enough vertically), they either go back to the atmosphere (air will stop it, duh) or slightly higher up to be in an orbit that’s original height on one side and slightly higher on another.
Even the worst Kessler syndrome scenarios don’t stop new satellites from being launched through the debris-containing altitudes to reach clear orbits.
We already have the technology if memory serves. Since civilians are the last to know, there have probably been satellite killers in orbit for years.
It’s fun for Musk to get fucked, but I believe Ukraine uses Starlink to defend itself
It’s not even secret, there have been highly publicized tests of ground- and air-launched interceptor missiles, and a fair few tests observed by amateur astronomers where military satellites rendezvoused and closed to observation/weapons range with dummy targets. It’s very hard to hide anything that happens in orbit.
I recall hearing about a contract with some EU based company too, though. For both one way and two way satellite IP. No idea if that’s still in effect. Also no idea if Starlink is still in effect. Well, apart from the star-to-cell bullshit Kyivstar is trying to do with the AI generated landing page. Or were trying earlier this year.
Also, I recall someone complaining that if you order Starlink for one location and then put the unit in another, it will go “roaming mode” and limit speed. Doesn’t hurt too much but that sucks! I would imagine that if you are stationary enough you may as well take time to set up line of sight directional antenna shit on land to some other object.
I’m surprised China just doesn’t say they created a better Starlink. The CCP lies/makes up about everything else so what’s one more thing.
Space wars?
Sorry, space is closed.
According to the authors of the concept, if the resilience of a satellite constellation is ensured by its sheer number, then the response should be a weapon cheap enough to destroy satellites faster than SpaceX can launch new ones.
Smells of the good old forgeting that the target wont just sit by
At least they arent putting everything in one basket this time with physical destruction being the last option
Whats a satellite constallation destroyer but a anti ICBM weapon under a diffrent name?
they already have anti-satellite missiles, they just need to build alot of them. or have jamming satellites of thier own,.
This feels like one AI civ making a pact with a lesser AI civ that is already bogged down in war and clearly won’t win the military victory it’s going for, so that once it has run the course of its use will be invaded and incorporated with the bigger civ.
They’re also already been sending settlers to the African continent, if it was me I’d be restarting the game because any turn now they will conquer Asia, Europe, and Africa, and achieve either a cultural or military victory by doomstack.
Reality isn’t a video game.
Have you tried turning it off, then turning it back on again?
OH SHIT! NO WAY!
I heard there’s no respawn in RL.
Depends on who you ask
That’s great. No space for anyone.
And so the star wars begins.
Again?! No. That’s IMPOSSIBLEEEEE
