| ▲ | mrtksn 18 hours ago | ||||||||||||||||
What I wonder about the Starlink constellation is, how secure it is physically? There are people burning down 5G towers. How plausible would be for a conspiracy nut to create a rocket to take out the satellites? Maybe starting a cascading effect? | |||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | nordsieck 17 hours ago | parent | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||
It's not very likely. USC students just broke the non-government, non-corporate rocket launch altitude record, reaching 143.25km[1]. But that is still a long way from the ~500km that Starlink operates at. On top of that the person would have to develop a guidance system and payload capable of targeting and sufficiently damaging one of these satellites - not an easy feat. Finally, it seems unlikely that a single hit would cause a chain reaction. There aren't that many satellites that are part of Starlink. Imagine 6000 cars spread over the surface of the Earth. Except that they're even more sparse than that because many of them are at different altitudes. Additionally, SpaceX has already had to deal with the result of the debris field from the Russian Cosmos satellite that was destroyed by a Russian anti-satellite missile.[2] Starlink has a lot of protection compared to other constellations since the satellites occupy such low orbits that most debris spontaneously deorbits in 5-10 years. --- 1. https://viterbischool.usc.edu/news/2024/11/usc-student-rocke... 2. https://spacenews.com/starlink-satellites-encounter-russian-... | |||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | bitmasher9 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||
If you can make a rocket that reaches a Starlink Satellite then there are many other targets the same rocket can hit that would be more damaging. Rockets are a military technology, and are treated as such. | |||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | Tostino 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||
At the level of nation-state funding, sure thing that's possible. | |||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | numpad0 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||
They don't fly sun synchronous orbits, so a giant vertical laser cannon near equator running 24/7 can kill them all in matters of days. I think. Carrying this out likely also constitute a de facto declaration of war against the US. | |||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | bagels 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||
The overlap between people who are irrationally afraid of 5G and are capable of building orbital rockets is probably pretty low. | |||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | xnzakg 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||
I doubt there is enough overlap between people able to build a rocket capable of taking out satellites and people who are afraid of 5G. | |||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | markasoftware 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | ||||||||||||||||
> how plausible would it be for a conspiracy nit to create a rocket to take out the satellites? not plausible at all. Most /countries/ aren't able to launch a rocket to orbit. | |||||||||||||||||
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