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Comment by gibbonsrcool | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn't attacks on Starlink be so asymmetrical that we'd want the enemy to try and shoot them down? They'd go bankrupt trying. We launch 60 satellites per Falcon, and who knows how many per Starship. Meanwhile the bad guys have to use a whole launch to take out one/few Starlink satellites.

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This comment struck me as hilariously American. "We". "The bad guys".

How do you guys overseas refer to hypothetical wartime adversaries? "The good guys"?

Yes, I'm being a little facetious :P

I kind of don't think Starlink would be a big target at least until they have satellite to satellite comunication; if they get multiple hops in space communications working and especially it can be used from end-user to end-user without spaceX ground stations, then satellites become a target. Otherwise if you want to disrupt communications, the SpaceX ground stations are in known (or knowable) locations and easy to target.

But, if you did attack the satellites, I suspect you'd do something MIRVish, so assume 10ish strikes per launch, and there's some number of strikes less than the fleet that ruins the orbits for everyone for a few years.

All that’s needed is a debris field to render the orbit unusable for decades.

Unless a few multi-megaton nukes can take out ALL of the LEO satellites at once.

If it's one-missile per satellite, that could be true. Even at that rate, without the need to orbit, I believe a plane mounted missile could reach up to a Starlink satellite. However, there are a lot more effective ways. A cloud of debris it could take out whole orbits. An EMP could take out giant swaths of satellites within a certain radius. A software based attack could knock out the whole constellation.

Surface based missiles would suffice.

Not at all. The easiest way to take down Starlink is with ground-based lasers. Superpowers already possess this capability.

You’ve commented this twice. I’ve never read about any technology approaching this. Lasers are in tests to defeat small, slow, low altitude drones.

If anyone could shoot down an entire satellite constellation with lasers then that would mean all air defense is solved. Planes and missiles are much slower, closer, and larger than Starlink satellites.

In fairness, Starlink satellites are vulnerable to space based lasers, in ways that planes and missiles are not.

Also, unlike planes/missiles the last doesn't have to destroy the satellite. Frying the receiver or damaging the solar cells would be sufficient.

Here's the DIA publication[0] that briefly goes over space and ground based laser threats on pages 9 and 10. Here's the non-proliferation association also warning about ground based ASAT from RU and CN[1]. If they're doing it it's safe to assume US is also doing it.

I think you're probably thinking of the lasers on ships and planes, which would have limited power. Stationary ground based systems don't have the same constraints and are more of a threat for asat.

[0] https://www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/Military%20Pow...

[1] https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/l...

I'm sure there's a lot of things the military has done once or twice at immense cost in controlled settings. They (or you?) said a superpower can currently take down Starlink with lasers. That's just not true, and the fact that technology demonstrations have happened doesn't make it true.

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