China’s PLA wants to be able to take out Starlink

Chinese military researchers have urged the PLA to develop the capability to take down the Starlink global satellite network.

In a paper published last month, PLA scientists say the LEO network’s capabilities, including its huge global footprint, ubiquitous broadband and low latency pose a military threat to China, SCMP.com reported.

“A combination of soft and hard kill methods should be adopted to make some Starlink satellites lose their functions and destroy the constellation’s operating system,” they wrote in a paper for the Chinese journal Modern Defence Technology.

Starlink’s huge scale and decentralized nature meant that the threat derives from the whole system, not individual satellites, said the paper, whose lead author, Ren Yuanzhen, is a researcher with PLA’s Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications.

The authors estimate Starlink can increase the data speeds to US drones and fighter jets by more than 100 times, and say in response China needs to develop “some low-cost, high-efficiency measures.”

Starlink in Ukraine

The Starlink network, owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is already playing a role in the Ukraine conflict, with reportedly more than 10,000 terminals being used by both civilians and the military (see Starlink helps Vodafone Ukraine reconnect battle-scarred towns).

The 23-inch Starlink dishes are said to be small enough to evade detection and are easy for Ukrainian soldiers to carry.

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