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Starlink launches forty-ish Starlink sats every other week, Russia could deplete it's entire arsenal of missiles and, if they're lucky, cause a hole in their coverage.
Spy satellites have always been valid targets. I don't think they're any more likely to shoot these ones down than any of the others.
For real. This seems like something that threatens musk and space x more than anybody else. The CIA effectively has unlimited money to replace whatever Russia takes down, but musk needing to pay to replace satellites to maintain starlink will hurt his bottom line. I don't think tin foil hat wearers would be all that unreasonable to make the assumption that this is a veiled threat to keep musk in line. I frequently hear the argument that "billionaires can't be bought" but I believe the exact opposite. They care more about money than morals and ethics, and can therefore be coerced by it either through hurting their bottom line or rewarding them with more of it. A dragon's hoard can never be too big for the dragon to accept more, and nothing hurts the drain more than reducing its hoard.
Musk supports Russia so what's the play here
That CIA - SpaceX combo to make spy satellites mentioned some days back.
Can't wait to hear about space X satellites falling out of a window.
I Fucking Love the same joke for 3 years straight!!!!
Only 3? I thought we were closing on a decade with this joke now.
There are more sats than asat missiles. The math doesn't work out. Unless they use nukes or shotgun blasts or something to make the entirety of leo unusable.
The math doesn’t work out.
You only need enough asat missiles to create enough debris. Kessler handles the rest.
Hense making the entirety of leo unusable
Eh, not for long. LEO everything falls eventually. HEO... that can take a long hot minute.
LEO we're still talking the better part of a decade, especially the derbies that get kicked to higher altitudes by the collisions. It's not as permanent as higher up, but it's still a strategic level capability, not tactical.
The numbers I've heard for LEO are like 4-5 years. But that point is whatever.
Kessler'ing the LEO means it's now harder to retaliate in HEO. It would be an easy win for Russia to knock out Starlink if the US government is actually relying on it in any meaningful capacity.
It sounds like they are using it as a backup for their geostationary sats which would be much higher resolution and data rate. But there aren't as many of them, so they're feasible to shoot down.
On one hand, I really, really want those idiots in the Kremel to cause a Kessler Syndrome...(In theory it could also prevent ballistic missiles)
On the other hand, that would be quite bad for the rest of us.
Starlink birds fly too low for that, they will deorbit in 4-8 years if they go dead.
I'd be worried about debris flung into steeply elliptical orbits, though. It wouldn't take much to do some real damage to sats in higher orbits and once the cascade starts there's not much we can do but wait decades for the worst of it to fall into the atmosphere.
Those steeply elliptical orbits would probably deorbit even quicker since a random impulse that boosts the apogee is likely to lower the perigee even more.
Kessler syndrome is only a threat to satellites that are orbiting within the debris, it's not really a danger if you're only passing through (as a ballistic missile would).
Blast Lonnie's bullshit out of the sky and see if I care.
So...Goldeneye part 2?
Win-win