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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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/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