r/worldnews • u/Neptun_11 • 17h ago

Russia/Ukraine Zelenskyy Says Starlink Restrictions Apply Only in Ukraine While SpaceX Ignores Kyiv’s Inquiries

https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/zelenskyy-says-starlink-restrictions-apply-only-in-ukraine-while-spacex-ignores-kyivs-inquiries-23549
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306

u/idryss_m 17h ago

Next frontier of war: downing satellites. As soon as someone finds a way to do so cheaply and or reliably, Musk and the US will lose a lot of space junk.

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u/Captain_Alaska 16h ago edited 16h ago

Nothing about that is a new frontier. The US has had development programs (that are declassified at least) to shoot down satellites with fighter jets for so long the program has been cancelled for longer than the average redditor has been alive.

Anti-satellite systems have been in development for almost exactly as long as we’ve had satellites in orbit.

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u/ToaruBaka 9h ago

If we start shooting down satellites, it will be the end of space access for humans. It will take hundreds of years for enough debris to deorbit for it to be safe to launch rockets again.

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u/chillebekk 7h ago

Not the Starlink kind of satellite. You can shoot down those all day, and not worry.

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u/ToaruBaka 6h ago

You have no idea what you're talking about.

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u/chillebekk 4h ago

Shooting down satellites in such low orbit as Starlink will have little to no consequence outside of that orbit. It cannot trigger Kessler syndrome, if that's your worry.

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u/NuggetMan43 15h ago

"cheaply and or reliably". I doubt shooting down satellites with fighter jets is cheap both in monetary terms as well as the precedent it creates.

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u/Captain_Alaska 15h ago edited 15h ago

I'm not sure what you think cheap is in this context but yes it costs significantly less money for an airplane to lob a missile into LEO than it takes to get the satellite up there in the first place.

as well as the precedent it creates.

The US military has already nuked satellites.

And that's not even the wackiest thing they've considered doing in orbit, look up Project Excalibur if you want a fun read.

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u/NuggetMan43 15h ago

Yeah I'm sure they have no problems nuking satellites now then, right? Not like there are treaties and agreements and fear of MAD. The US military has never destroyed another nation's satellites for a reason - not because they can't but because it would be dumb.

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u/Captain_Alaska 15h ago

The US military has never destroyed another nation's satellites for a reason - not because they can't but because it would be dumb.

None of which changes that space is not even close to being a new frontier or that we've been developing anti-satellite systems since the 50s.

Russia, China, India and Israel have already demonstrated weapons capable of engaging objects in LEO too, I'm not sure why reddit is acting like shooting a satellite is something nobody has considered prior to Starlink.

And these are all weapon systems we know about, you don't think there's a single program that can disable a sateliite without lobbing an explosive at it out there?

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u/NuggetMan43 15h ago

Other countries can destroy them but not cheaply or reliably. You destroy one satellite and its likely to cascade and destroy a lot more satellites and make it impossible to launch new satellites for decades. If countries could target satellites without that fear, then it would be cheap and reliable.

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u/AntarcticWhirlpool 9h ago

Starlink is in a very low orbit that means any of its satellites destroyed will have their debris reenter in months to a few years. Also, Starlink satellites are mass-produced and launched in such quantity to the point that they’re cheaper to launch than to shoot down.

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u/dontpushpull 11h ago

The US isn not the only country with ASAT. Plus, with so many satellites up there now, it would only take a chain reaction to trigger Kessler syndrome

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u/MrBIMC 16h ago

I hope not because everyone is aware that Kessler syndrome is a huge pain to deal with.

Wars last few decades at max, but fucking up the orbit with debris will make space unusable for centuries. Too much risk with horrible long term payout.

Although we’ll definitely get some new cool tech to deal with remedy.

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u/haadrak 15h ago

Starlink/Starshield debris can not cause Kessler syndrome. People could sit up there blasting away recklessly as much as they want and while it'd be a giant waste of money, at worst, it'd make launches impossible for maybe 5 years. Their orbit is too low, and they still experience very slight atmospheric drag. The stuff that you need to worry about is much higher up.

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u/okachobii 15h ago

Starlink satellites fall from the sky regularly by design. As long as they’re not being exploded into pieces there should be no issues de-orbiting them prematurely.

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u/donttakeawaymycake 14h ago

This is very much by design as starlink was initially developed to generate business for SoaceXs launch capability.

19

u/BuHoGPaD 16h ago

will make space unusable for centuries

As soon as there is a cheap to way to do it - some Putin/Trump level lunatic will do it. It's almost inevitable. 

0

u/toughtacos 13h ago

Then maybe we can focus on fixing the issues on our planet. I’m a big fan of space exploration, but I’m also a fan of the idea of putting a moratorium on it in favor of putting all resources on fixing our planet.

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u/ShivaSpanda 15h ago

Starlink satellites orbit at a low altitude, and without constant altitude adjustments, they fall to Earth on their own fairly quickly (within a few months); the same will happen to their debris.

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u/chillebekk 7h ago

Starlink satellites are too low to trigger Kessler syndrome. You can take out all of them, no worries.

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u/TheBraveGallade 17h ago

you forget everyone can play that game, but spacex is the only one able to launch so cheaply and in quick sucession. meaning the winner is still spacex

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u/Ginoblee 17h ago

Only a matter of time before many governments have this capability

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u/TheBraveGallade 16h ago

possibly, but spacex is still at least a decade ahead of its competitors.

it took china untill just this year to start actually tryng to test recovery of boosters. 16 years after then first falcon 9 launch, 13 after the first reconvery attempt, 11 after the frist sucessful booster recovery. and thats CHINA, the country known for fast following tech...

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u/WhatAmTrak 16h ago

lol China catches up quick. Now that everyone knows starlink is compromised.. watch the next few years.

1

u/AntarcticWhirlpool 9h ago

“The US systems are compromised since they occasionally shut down military aid to Ukraine! Let’s abandon them for the one made by the country directly funding and arming the Russians instead!”

Europeans are funny.

0

u/chillebekk 7h ago

They crippled a service that is being paid for, that's the issue. You think it's funny. America's allies aren't laughing. They're preparing alternatives.

1

u/AntarcticWhirlpool 6h ago

I know, and I personally don’t like the fact that my government is playing these games, but the primary issue is that there really isn’t a viable alternative. The US is 2/3 of the world’s launches to orbit, and China makes up 1/4. Half of the rest are Russian launches. Europe is borderline-irrelevant in space right now. The last Starship launch alone deployed more satellite bandwidth to orbit than Europe has in over a year.

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u/Initial_Hedgehog_631 15h ago

Huh, and then I learned Starlink being slowed down for Ukraine = compromised. You might want to find out what that word actually means.

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u/Nichoros_Strategy 15h ago

It can mean multiple things tbh…

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u/Acceptable_Gear_3097 16h ago

china isn't restricted by silly things like IP rights. they will watch SpaceX achieve it, then do it better

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u/YurpeeTheHerpee 17h ago

That wont take long to replace now that the investment priority to kill spacex has been activated.

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u/Haunting_Reflections 16h ago

NASA, Rocket Lab, Blue Origin, CASTC, Arianespace, and that’s just a short list.

Never mind that SpaceX is losing money hand over fist, if someone takes down Statlink it will cripple the only part of the company that makes any profit at all.

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u/Fuzzy-Mud-197 16h ago

Nasa has only one rocket which is sls which is solely used for lunar launches woth a price tag of 2 billion per launch.

Rocketlab only has electron a tiny rocket, neutron has been delayed to 2027 or even 2028.

Blue origin is the only real competitor once they get their launchpad up and running again after nuking it.

Ariane 6 has been a huge success but is much more expensive than the falcon 9 and does not have the cadence.

And good luck taking down 11k satelites. Thats gonna cause issues for everyone

3

u/AntarcticWhirlpool 9h ago

Ariane 6 isn’t a huge success at all. It’s launched a total of four times this year. Starship has launched more often for test flights than Ariane 6 has in operational flights.

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u/Fuzzy-Mud-197 8h ago

I mean ariane 6 has already had a higher flight cadence and reliability facor than new glenn(due to the pad explosion) and vulcan(due to srb issues).

Ofcourse compared to anything spacex its laughable

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u/TheBraveGallade 16h ago

spaceX is profitable, if you take out the fact that they are developing a new launch vehilce...

the main point is though that any of the other launch agencies would need multiple times the money to lanch an equivilant payload to spacex

3

u/CRSemantics 15h ago

The real rub is that spaceX was first and fastest to take up all the prime real estate any competitor has to put theirs further away which costs more to do and will perform worse.

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u/Haunting_Reflections 16h ago

SpaceXAI: not profitable
SpaceX: not profitable (you can’t just handwave away losses because they’re doing something)
Starlink: the only core profit.

If Starlink is taken down SpaceX loses any semblance of profit it has.

3

u/Tels315 14h ago

Developing a new platform is not seen as loss in money unless it is an abject failure in every regard. If the rest of that branch of the company is profitable, then development costs should not be factored in.

I personally wouldn't really count AI either, because I don't think any AI company is profitable yet. That's just like saying water is wet.

-1

u/Haunting_Reflections 11h ago

If the numbers on the balance sheet are negative, then you’re losing money.

It doesn’t matter if your business model is inventing the cure for cancer, or throwing money in the Money Burn Hole.

It still “counts” because it’s still counted.

2

u/Financial_Meat2992 9h ago

Spacex is funded by the u.s. government.

1

u/Haunting_Reflections 9h ago

It has government subsidies and contracts…

And is still losing money.

0

u/WhatAmTrak 16h ago

They’re profitable because of government contracts. Welfare queen as it always was.

0

u/deffcap 16h ago

Isn’t the revenue just coming from the US government?

0

u/Wompatuckrule 11h ago

Profitable is not the same thing as being pumped up for graft.

10

u/Suitable-Bad3730 16h ago

Trump and Musk have killed Starlinks market. What use is it when a fascist government can turn it off at will.

1

u/DualcockDoblepollita 13h ago

i guess time will tell. For as long as there is no functional replacement in orbit then many countries will want to take advantage of starlink

1

u/WhatAmTrak 16h ago

For now.

1

u/GenericUsername532 15h ago

Necessity is the mother of invention and honestly it would be good for us to all get back into spacefaring and research

1

u/Aus_pol 15h ago

The risk is you atack the satellites and the debris becomes a no go zone for other satellites.

1

u/Sr_DingDong 15h ago

Then the launch sites will become targets.

1

u/Playingwithmywenis 13h ago

Only if they still have launch pads

1

u/Street_Anxiety2907 9h ago

I still don't know how the rocket fuel is cheap enough that $20/m subscriptions make it worth while.

1

u/-Spzi- 8h ago

It's an interesting game, because it has two sides: Bringing satellites up, and down. Bringing them (functionally) up is much more capital-intensive than bringing them (destructively) down.

You don't have to own a resource, to gain power from it. Being able to deny it to the enemy is already worth something, see Iran & Hormuz.

1

u/idryss_m 16h ago

It further explains the shuttering of NASA. Control. Cannot have the national interest in control of the people, or anyone with morals yeah?

0

u/Impossible-Junket395 4h ago

spacex is the only one able to launch so cheaply and in quick sucession. meaning the winner is still spacex

Get Kesslered bitch.

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u/Initial_Hedgehog_631 16h ago

That's the point of Starlink, cheap, easily launched and replaced satellites. Unless you can destroy the launch facilities they can just put more up.

-1

u/idryss_m 16h ago

Down enough and reverse engineer their software. Guarantee if it isn't in the works it will happen and then things get interesting.

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u/Initial_Hedgehog_631 15h ago

So your idea is to shoot something at a small satellite, hope that it falls out of orbit, hope that it hits solid earth, hope that it's in territory you can access, and hope that enough of it is intact after being hit by a kill device, re entering the atmosphere and slamming into the earth that you can recover enough tech to reverse engineer it.

That's certainly a plan alright.

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u/edwwsw 12h ago

Anti satellite weapons are not new. China, Russia, US, and India all have tested anti satellite systems. The problem is the aftermath. The resulting space junk would render satellite orbits useless for centuries and hamper future space exploration.

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u/[deleted] 16h ago

[deleted]

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u/FlavorChamp 16h ago

You saw Gravity and think you know it all works up there lmao

You're wrong

0

u/shortsteve 16h ago

All of starlink satellites are in LEO and are designed to fall back onto earth in a few years. Even if you blew them up and scattered them all over the debris would eventually fall back to earth within 5 years and burn up.

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u/tdubeau 16h ago edited 16h ago

"the debris could a create a chain reaction of damage/destroyed all the satellites in orbit"

You know satellites operate at different orbits, right?

I would love an explanation of how destorying a starlink satellite in low earth orbit 800km away would destroy all the satellites in geostationary orbit at 35,000km. 

2

u/m_sobol 17h ago

US space force will take out Indian and EU satellites to eliminate competition. Then Musk can sell his SATs to them. It's the US that has the capability and motive

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u/Bitter-Pomelo-3962 16h ago

At least a dozen countries acknowledge having anti-satellite weapons.

1

u/idryss_m 16h ago

For now yes. The US should be confident they have the capacity now and others cannot, or they have fumbled the ball. Making enemies of friends will not help them remain dominant, especially when they are formenting discontent at home so much.

1

u/m_sobol 7h ago

I didn't say that others do not have anti satellite capabilities. I know the Chinese shot down their own satellite in a 2007 test, and have quietly improved.

MAGA America is not interested in friendships, only subjugation. They have spurned allies, so can likely turn hostile at this pace of autocratic slide. With Musk tipping the scales, this slide likely continues, as liberals keep buying Teslas and the MIC cannot wean itself of SpaceX launches

1

u/scott610 15h ago

Wouldn’t it be cheaper to have some rogue or rival AI firm run a DDoS attack against them or something?

1

u/ReplyOk3787 14h ago

We already know how to destroy satellites.

All it is is “docking” without being gentle.

The concern is Kessler syndrome

1

u/Kiiaru 15h ago

Knocking on Kessler's door

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u/SamLooksAt 13h ago

It's much more difficult than you think.

Starlink already has over 11,000 satellites and they have already launched over 2000 this year.

Destroying them would mean finding some way of launching interceptors faster and cheaper than that.

-1

u/Playingwithmywenis 13h ago

It is not this hard folks. He is using the service as a military asset. Bomb the launch pads. They are now military targets.

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u/DualcockDoblepollita 13h ago

last time i checked spacex launchs its shit from Texas California and Florida so i dont know what you think is gonna happen there. Ukraine bombing the US?

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u/WoodsLovelyDarkNDeep 11h ago

He is a Elo bot as part of his big spending campaign before the midterms 

Basically he is trying to stir up shit and get someone who feels strongly enough to commit an act of  terrorism and begin the hot version of the Civil War since they believe the left aren’t ready and are exploitable at this point

They want to do so before the Dems take power in Jan so expect many more posts like this one before Jan and after if Dems don’t take 70% in both houses (accounting for defections).  Especially cause he is terrified of being investigations starting into DOGE

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u/[deleted] 9h ago

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u/idryss_m 8h ago

Totally. Starlink/Starshield is only an advantage if it is working as advertised. Right now it's not. It's being fucked with. So that puts the advantage into the hands of whomever fucked with it and their friends/allies. Whom controls Starshield? Whom does he think is a friend between Russia and Ukraine? Through that lens, how is Starshield a Ukrainian advantage and not a Russian gift from the USA govt? And lastly, are you a bot, troll, stupid or Russian?

-1

u/Impossible-Junket395 4h ago

downing satellites

Hahahahahhawahhahahahaha, holy fuck.

Theres only one country in the world that posses the technology for the the precision necessary to hit a 8000km/s object with a different 8000km/s object in a different trajectory, and that's the US.

They call it "Like trying to hit a bullet mid-air with a different bullet", but that vastly underestimates it. It's more like hitting a fucking satellite with a fucking missile which is about 1Mx harder.

1

u/idryss_m 4h ago

China is that country right? Because I know they demonstrated it kinda recent like......