Comment on How the regime in Iran jams Starlink and what people could do

driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Given that space isn’t owned by any one country, and Starlink is a US company, whose services are used by the US government, there’s a very good chance there would be military retaliation.

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• partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  It would be hard to do? How much would that affect the general use of starlink for users on other parts of the world?

  Only two countries have demonstrated air launched rockets that can destroy satellites on orbit, the USA and Russia. There is good speculation that China has built anti-satellites satellites, but no one is aware of any actual proven test.

  Now, lets assume that all 3 countries decide they want to attack Starlink satellites at once with all their weapons. Perhaps they destroy 30 satellites in total. As of November 2025 the Starlink network surpassed 10,000 satellites in orbit. As for replacing the lost satellites, a single launch places 25 to 28 satellites in orbit at a time. Within the next 24 hours 25 more Starlink satellites will be launched:

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  In 4 days, another launch is occurring that will place 24 more Starlink satellites in orbit.

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  So destroying a few dozen Starlink satellites might cause a slight blip in coverage for maybe a few minutes tops.

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  • titanicx@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Didn’t China demonstrate last year that a land-based launch destroyed a satellite in space?

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    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I haven’t seen it. I’d happy to look at a link if you have one.

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      • titanicx@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I don’t know I think it’d take you the same amount of time to Google it as it would take for me to. I just seem to recall a news article I read sometime in the last 6 months where they stated that China has successfully test launched a rocket and destroyed a satellite in orbit.

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  • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Didn’t starlink satellites in really low orbit? Maybe you don’t need as sofisticate technology as with other satellites.

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    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      That picture of the F-15 jet firing the missile was at a satellite 300 miles up. Starlink satellites are about 350 miles up.

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  • ardrak@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Destroying a few dozen satellites would probably kickstart a Kessler síndrome.

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    • exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      You’d never get Kessler syndrome at Starlink altitudes.

      Starlink satellites orbit at around 550km, and get dragged by the little bit of atmosphere that is at that altitude. Each collision might make more debris, but the conservation of momentum means that any debris that gets kicked to a lower orbit will probably burn up on the atmosphere while any debris that gets kicked to a higher altitude will be smaller mass and therefore cause less damage on the next collision after that.

      Collisions can still happen, but the runaway conditions where debris begets debris won’t happen at those orbital velocities and altitude.

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    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Maybe, but not guaranteed. Starlink satellites aren’t very big (meaning not very large pieces if they blow up). Additionally, Starlink satellites have active avoidance systems that can “dodge” debris to a degree (its slow, but space is big). Lastly, because the pieces would be small, they’d experience more atmospheric drag and fall back to Earth faster. Whether that means weeks instead of years, I don’t know.

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      • ardrak@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        It’s hard to predict the outcome in such a chaotic event but starlink alone already does 100k+ collision avoidance maneuvers each year (can’t remember the exact number but is more than one every 2 minutes). It’s highly unlikely that we would be able to accurately track the newly formed debris of dozens of satellites blowing up and adjust the orbit of (potentially) hundreds of satellites in a few minutes.

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• NOT_RICK@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Look up Kessler syndrome for an answer as to what may happen if starlink satellites were attacked. Nations only control their airspace up to the Karman line which is 100km up. Starlink satellites are well beyond that.

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• zaphod@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Very hard to do. You need to be able to launch to the same orbits as the satellites and Starlink uses thousands of satellites, almost all of which will at some point fly over those countries. So they’d need to shoot them all down.

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