When you buy through links on our web site , we may realise an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it works .
Chinese military investigator have call for the development of a " intemperate kill " artillery to destroyElon Musk’sStarlinksatellite system if it threatensChina ’s national security .
The researchers puff attention toStarlink’s"huge potential difference for military software " and the indigence for China to develop countermeasure to surveill , disable or even destroy the get planet megaconstellation . Their paper was published last calendar month in the journal China ’s Modern Defence Technology . A understand transcript of the paper is availablehere .
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 48 Starlink internet satellites launches from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida on 28 April 2025.
Starlink is a broadband satellite cyberspace web develop by Musk’sSpaceXcompany that aims to beam net admission to customer anywhere in the earth ( as long as they have a Starlink satellite sweetheart to link to the satellites ) . Since the first Starlink satellites were launched in 2019 , SpaceX has put more than 2,300 of them into low - Earthorbit , and the company plans to send up to 42,000 satellites into quad to form a gigantic megaconstellation .
Related : Geomagnetic storm direct 40 SpaceX satellites plump to Earth
The Chinese researchers were peculiarly interest by the potential military potentiality of the configuration , which they claim could be used to track hypersonic missile ; dramatically hike up the data transmission speeding of U.S. dawdler and stealth fighter jet ; or even drive into and destruct Chinese satellites . China has had some near misses with Starlink satellites already , havingwritten to the U.N.last year to complain that the state ’s outer space station was forced to perform emergency tactical manoeuvre to debar " faithful encounters " with Starlink satellites in July and October 2021 .
" A combining of delicate and hard kill methods should be adopted to make some Starlink satellite lose their subroutine and ruin the configuration ’s operating system , " the researcher , led by Ren Yuanzhen , a researcher at the Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications , which is part of the Chinese military ’s Strategic Support Force , wrote in the theme . Hard and soft kill are the two category of blank weapons , with strong kill being weapons that physically strike their targets ( like missiles ) and diffused kill including electronic jamming and laser weapon system .
China already has multiple method for disabling planet . These include microwave oven jammers that can disrupt communication or fry electrical components ; sinewy , mm - resolution lasers that can nab high - resolve images and unreasoning planet sensors ; cyber - artillery to whoop into satellite web ; and long - range anti - satellite ( ASAT ) missiles to destroy them , allot to theU.S. Department of Defense . But the researchers say that these measures , which are effective against individual satellites , wo n’t be enough to scurry Starlink .
" The Starlink constellation constitutes a decentralised system . The confrontation is not about private satellites , but the whole system , " the researchers compose . The researchers also outlined how an attack on the Starlink system of rules would demand " some low - monetary value , in high spirits - efficiency measures . "
on the button what these measuring stick could be remains unclear . The researchers propose that China should build its own undercover agent satellites to better snoop on Starlink ; find newfangled and improved ways to hack its scheme ; and evolve more efficient method to down multiple satellites in the web . This could potentially entail the deployment of optical maser , microwave oven weapon or small satellite that could be used to teem Starlink ’s orbiter . China is also look to compete with Starlink directly through the launching of its own satellite mesh . call Xing Wang , or Starnet , it also aims to ply global internet admittance to paying customers .
Starlink has been used for military aim before . Just two days after Russia ’s invasion ofUkraineon Feb. 24 , Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorovwrote on Twitterasking Musk to deploy more Starlink satellite to the country . Speaking at the World Economic Forum at Davos , Switzerland , on May 24 , Fedorov said that SpaceX has so far provide more than 12,000 Starlink orbiter dishes to Ukraine , while adding that " all decisive base [ in Ukraine ] use Starlink . "
— China build up ' artificial Sun Myung Moon ' for somberness experiment
— Space junk is block our opinion of the stars , scientist say
— How will Ukraine keep SpaceX ’s Starlink cyberspace service online ?
Earlier this calendar month , Elon Muskwrote on Twitterthat Russia had made multiple signal - jamming and hack attempt on Starlink . A notefrom Dmitry Rogozin , the managing director of the Russian distance agency Roscosmos , to Russian media also appear to threaten Musk , accusing him of supplying " activist of the Nazi Azov battalion " with " military communicating equipment " and claim that Musk would be hold accountable . Muskresponded by writingon Twitter , " If I break down under mystic circumstance , it ’s been nice knowin ya . "
China may be looking at alternative way to foresee Starlink because antisatellite missile make wild conditions for all land control in space . Explosions in orbit are dangerous not just on their own , but also because of the many 1000 of detritus bit they make ( ranging from basketball - size of it to as small as a food grain of backbone ) . This space shrapnel has the potential difference to induce serious damage to satellite . In November 2021 , a Russian anti - satellite missile mental test blew up a defunct Soviet - era spy planet in low - ground orbit and produce a rubble field of at least 1,632 firearm that forced U.S. astronauts aboard theInternational Space Stationto hide in their docked abridgement , according to a U.S. Space Force database of orbital object .
The U.S. , China , India and Russia have all run out ASAT tests in the past , creating distance rubble in the process . The U.S. announce a banning on further antisatellite tests in April . In October 2021,Chinese scientists claimedto have designed a manner to avoid the dust problem with an explosive gimmick that could be packed inside a orbiter ’s exhaust schnoz , safely blowing up the artificial satellite without make any mickle and in a way that could be slip for an engine malfunction .
According to a recently release report from the U.S. Department of Defense , Chinahas more than doubledits act of tidings , surveillance and reconnaissance mission ( ISR ) satellitessince 2019 , from 124 to 250 . At the get-go of 2022 , China ’s total number of satellites , including non - ISR unity , was 499 , second only to the United States ' 2,944 , of which Starlink makes up more than 2,300,according to the Union of Concerned Scientists .
Originally published on Live Science .
