BY ED
BROWNE ON 5/26/22 AT 9:12 AM EDT
Left: A Chinese Long March 5B rocket launches from China's Hainan island in May 2020. Right: Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, is seen at a satellite conference in Washington, D.C., in March 2020.STR/AFP/WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY
Ateam
of Chinese researchers has reportedly published a study calling for
anti-satellite capabilities that could disable Elon Musk's Starlink
satellites if deemed necessary.
The study was led by Ren Yuanzhen,
a researcher with the Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications, and
co-authored by scientists within China's defense industry according to the South China Morning Post, which has seen the
publication.
The study is said to call for "a combination of soft and
hard kill methods" that could be used to stop some Starlink satellites
from working.
Starlink is a satellite internet network developed
by Musk's company SpaceX. It involves thousands of small satellites in
low-Earth orbit that beam down an internet connection to paying customers.
One concern amongst the scientists was that the
Starlink network could be used to vastly increase the data transmission speed
of U.S. military vehicles like fighter jets.
It's not clear exactly
what methods could be used, though the study notes that the approach should be
"low-cost, high-efficiency" and that the whole network is a problem
rather than individual satellites, South China Morning Post reported.
This could mean that a missile-based approach
may be unlikely, considering Starlink is composed of thousands of small
satellites, and using missiles to destroy them all would almost certainly not
be low-cost or high-efficiency. Thus, lasers, microwave technology, or even
smaller satellites could be used to defend Chinese interests.
Newsweek contacted SpaceX ahead of publication
and did not receive a response.
While Starlink has commercial users it has
also been put to military use, pushing data across the U.S. Army network at a
faster rate than previously capable.
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This military capability, plus the fact that
SpaceX has launched more than 2,650 satellites into space in just a few years
and aims to launch thousands more, has led to concerns among countries with
which the U.S. has political tensions.
Earlier this month,
Dmitry Rogozin, head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency, apparently sent a threat to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk after
Starlink technology was supplied to Ukraine and used to help Ukrainian forces
against Russia in the countries' ongoing war.
According to an English translation posted by
Musk, Rogozin said that Musk was involved in supplying Ukraine with
"military communication equipment" and that he would "be held
accountable like an adult."
In addition, China last year wrote to the U.N.
General Assembly Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space to report that
its national space station had to carry out collision avoidance maneuvers after
"close encounters" with Starlink satellites on July 1 and October 21
last year.
Update, 5/27/22, 4:46 a.m. ET:
This article was updated to clarify that Newsweek had contacted SpaceX for
comment.
https://www.newsweek.com/china-elon-musk-scientists-plan-destroy-starlink-spacex-1710399
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