The Chinese military calls for a plan to destroy Elon Musk’s Starlink as Chinese researchers revealed that it could threaten China’s national security.
According to the research paper published last month, the military in China are calling for a “hard kill” weapon to destroy Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system over worries that the constellation could threaten Chinese national security.
The paper also emphasized the need for China to develop countermeasures that will surveill, disable or even destroy the growing satellite mega constellation in case they pose security threats to the country.
“A combination of soft and hard kill methods should be adopted to make some Starlink satellites lose their functionality and destroy the constellation’s operating system,” a translation of the paper published in China’s Modern Defence Technology journal read.
The researchers also highlighted that “Starlink had strong links with the American military with funding from the US Air Force to test how well Starlink satellites could connect with military aircraft under encryption.”
Important warning: Starlink is the only non-Russian communications system still working in some parts of Ukraine, so probability of being targeted is high. Please use with caution.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 3, 2022
The paper also revealed that the study was led by Ren Yuanzhen. Yuanzhen is reportedly a researcher from the Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications funded by the Chinese state.
“In May 2020, the US Army signed an agreement with SpaceX on the use of Starlink’s broadband to transmit data across military networks; in October 2020, SpaceX won a USD 150-million contract to develop military-use satellites; in March 2021, it announced its plan to work with the US Air Force to further test the Starlink Internet,” the research paper said.
On March 4, Elon Musk released a warning against Russia amid the ongoing war between the country and Ukraine and as demonstrated by the Ukraine crisis, Starlink has the ability to provide vital infrastructure for communication during wartime.
“Important warning: Starlink is the only non-Russian communications system still working in some parts of Ukraine, so the probability of being targeted is high. Please use with caution.” Musk said in a tweet.
Russia reportedly tried to disabled the Starlink with an electromagnetic attack but it failed.
As a result, China revealed that the Starlink constellation is “about individual satellites, but the whole system” even the country reportedly has “methods for disabling traditional satellites using microwave jammers, targeted lasers and ballistic missiles.”
“requires some low-cost, high-efficiency measures,” the researchers claimed.
