Chinese military researchers have called for developing a “hard-to-kill” weapon to destroy Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system if it threatens China’s national security.

The researchers noted Starlink’s “great potential for military applications” and the need for China to develop countermeasures to spy on, disable or even destroy its growing satellite mega-constellation. Their article was published in China’s Modern Defense Technology magazine last month. A translated copy of the report is available here (opens in a new tab).

Starlink is a broadband satellite internet network developed by Musk’s SpaceX company that aims to provide internet access to customers worldwide (as long as there is a Starlink satellite dish to connect to the satellites). Since the launch of the first Starlink satellites in 2019, SpaceX has placed more than 2,300 satellites in low Earth orbit, and the company plans to send up to 42,000 satellites into space to form a massive mega-constellation.

Chinese researchers were particularly concerned about the constellation’s potential military capabilities, which they claimed could be used to track hypersonic missiles; Significantly increase the data transfer rates of US drones and stealth warplanes; it may even crash into Chinese satellites and destroy them. China has experienced some near misses with its Starlink satellites after writing to the UN (opens in new tab) last year to complain that its space station had to perform emergency maneuvers to avoid “close encounters” with Starlink satellites in July and October. 2021.

“A combination of soft and hard killing methods should be adopted to make some Starlink satellites lose their functionality and destroy the constellation’s operating system,” the researchers led by Ren Yuanzhen, a researcher at the Beijing Institute of Monitoring and Telecommunications. The Strategic Support Force of the Chinese army wrote in the newspaper. Hard and soft kill are two categories of space weapons; hard kill is weapons that physically hit their targets (such as missiles), and soft skills, including scramble and laser weapons.

China already has multiple ways to disable satellites. These include microwave jammers that can disrupt communications or fry electrical components; powerful millimeter-resolution lasers that can capture high-resolution images and blind satellite sensors; cyber weapons to hack satellite networks; and long-range anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles(opens in new tab) to destroy them, according to the US Department of Defense. However, the researchers say that these measures, which are effective against individual satellites, will not be enough to sink Starlink.

It remains unclear what precisely these measures might be. Researchers suggest that China should build its spy satellites to better spy on Starlink, find new and improved ways to hack their systems and develop more efficient methods to download multiple satellites in the network. This could potentially mean the deployment of lasers, microwave weapons, or smaller satellites that could be used to encircle Starlink’s satellites. China also wants to compete directly with Starlink by launching its satellite network. Called Xing Wang or Starnet, the company aims to provide paying customers with global internet access.

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Alice Jane
Alice is the Chief Editor with relevant experience of three years, Alice has founded Galaxy Reporters. She has a keen interest in the field of science. She is the pillar behind the in-depth coverages of Science news. She has written several papers and high-level documentation.

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