fingolasHow the regime in Iran jams Starlink and what people could do
driving_croonerWhat is going to happen when countries decide that they don’t want starlink satellites over thei air space and start to blow them up?
It would be hard to do? How much would that affect the general use of starlink for users on other parts of the world?
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:
In 4 days, another launch is occurring that will place 24 more Starlink satellites in orbit.
So destroying a few dozen Starlink satellites might cause a slight blip in coverage for maybe a few minutes tops.
Starlink: SpaceX surpasses 10,000 satellites, a historic record in space - Futura-Sciences
With more than 10,000 Starlink satellites now in orbit, SpaceX has cemented its dominance over low Earth orbit — and reignited growing concerns among scientists and astronomers about the consequences. This past Sunday, the company ... Read more
Didn’t starlink satellites in really low orbit? Maybe you don’t need as sofisticate technology as with other satellites.
That picture of the F-15 jet firing the missile was at a satellite 300 miles up. Starlink satellites are about 350 miles up.
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.
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.
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.
titanicxDidn’t China demonstrate last year that a land-based launch destroyed a satellite in space?
I haven’t seen it. I’d happy to look at a link if you have one.
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.
I did search it before I wrote my original comment, thats what I cited about the anti-satellite satellite effort China did. So I’ve already taken the time and came up empty. You’re saying it exists, but I didn’t find it in my original search. So I’m asked you because you encountered the info firsthand and may have a better chance of finding it.
en.wikipedia.org/…/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi…
Literally one of the first things that popped up if you search for China rocket destroys satellite.
Thank you for that link, I appreciate it. Here’s what I searched, and as you can see your link doesn’t show up:
Yeah that’s one thing that is always been a skill is you got to make sure you search things correctly. Not saying that you didn’t necessarily search correctly, however searching for China anti-satellite is not the same thing as China destroys satellite. You have different keywords different things that it references. It’s one of the biggest things as an IT guy that you learn. Is how to properly format searches in order to locate the exact information that you need. And just as an FYI I also searched it through duck duck go just on mobile rather than on a desktop.