Llast year, Elon Musk allowed Ukrainians to use Starlink in their fight against Russia. Until February 2023, much of the traffic that passed through the Starlink system was Ukrainian. Starlink has become an integral part of the country’s military and civilian response to the Russian NVO.
But also in the same month, Elon Musk discontinued some of the functionality of the satellites that the Ukrainian military used to use, saying he would not “allowed an escalation of the conflict that could lead to the third world war”;
You’re smart enough not to swallow media & other propaganda bs.
Starlink is the communication backbone of Ukraine, especially at the front lines, where almost all other Internet connectivity has been destroyed.
But we will not enable escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 12, 2023
However, the military capabilities of the Starlink network have been revealed. The Economist magazine in its January 2023 issue published articles “How Elon Musk’s Satellites Saved Ukraine and Changed Warfare” e “Starlink’s performance in Ukraine ignited a new space race“.
The satellite connectivity of the Starlink network, conceived only as a side job to help with proceeds pay for missions to Mars cherished by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, it allowed the Ukrainian Armed Forces to fight back. But in this way he openly showed the military potential of an almost ubiquitous connection.
And here’s an animation to help visualize the danger China is facing:
This animation shows all satellites of Starlink.
Green = In operation. Blue = Rising. Red = Descending pic.twitter.com/jhPMUimauI
— Hugo (@Hugo08413129) March 4, 2023
How China will react to the threat
According to Professor Xu Kang, an employee of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Space Engineering University, it will have nearly 13,000 satellites. For comparison, Starlink today has just over 3,000 spacecraft with plans to grow that number to 40,000 by 2027.
As already mentioned, the reasons for such an aggressive attitude of the Celestial Empire are explained by the fact that Starlink satellites are not only affordable high-speed Internet and global communications, but also a carefully hidden military component.
According to military experts, these satellites increase the speed of information exchange with attack drones and air forces by 100 times, forming effective military communication channels. In addition, they can be equipped with special military equipment designed, among other things, to destroy other satellites.
China’s political and military leadership is determined. “Next generation radars will be used to identify and track Starlink satellites. It is also expected to establish cooperation with other countries up to the creation of a coalition to counter the American threat from space “. (Fonte: South China Morning Post)
China could choose one of these options:
- Throw 13,000 satellites in low orbit that with their transmissions will “suppress” the Starlink transmission;
- Arm those satellites with payloads to destroy Starlink satellites;
- Develop lasers and microwave weapons that can be used to destroy Starlink satellites “that pass over China or other sensitive regions”.
And considering all the other plans, this one is by far the best: get Elon Musk to publish a catalog of the exact location of every Starlink satellite.
On the Russian side, however, it was assumed to disable the satellite network via software, overloading them. Due to the presence of vulnerabilities in the ground control center for Starlink satellites, it would be enough to disable its systems to render the satellite network is useless. But it doesn’t seem that the Jammer technique was enough.
Is it possible that Elon Musk has stopped supporting Ukraine for these prospects that have been communicated to him? Of course we don’t know. What is certain is that a new and increasingly lethal arms race is unleashing itself. Our world, in order to justify the continuous subtraction of resources from civil society to preserve the status quo of the hegemonic apparatus, feeds and creates threats of various kinds. However, a new technological run-up to preserve the current system is no longer reasonably feasible. It just doesn’t make sense.